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\title{Clocks, by Jerome K. Jerome}

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\title{Clocks}


\author{Jerome K. Jerome}

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\noindent This public-domain (U.S.) text was scanned and proofed by
Ronald Burkey (rburkey@heads-up.com) and Amy Thomte. The Project Gutenberg
edition ({}``jjclk10'') was subsequently converted to \LaTeX{} using
\textbf{GutenMark} software, and re-edited to correct the formatting.
If there are problems, contact info@sandroid.org. Revision B1 differs
from B in that {}``----'' has everywhere been replaced with {}``---''.

\noindent \begin{center}Revision: B1\\
Date: 02/02/2008\end{center}

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\chapter*{\raggedright CLOCKS.}

\markboth{Jerome K. Jerome}{Clocks}

There are two kinds of clocks. There is the clock that is always wrong,
and that knows it is wrong, and glories in it; and there is the clock
that is always right\mbox{---}except when you rely upon it, and then
it is more wrong than you would think a clock \textit{could} be in
a civilized country.

I remember a clock of this latter type, that we had in the house when
I was a boy, routing us all up at three o'clock one winter's morning.
We had finished breakfast at ten minutes to four, and I got to school
a little after five, and sat down on the step outside and cried, because
I thought the world had come to an end; everything was so death-like!

The man who can live in the same house with one of these clocks, and
not endanger his chance of heaven about once a month by standing up
and telling it what he thinks of it, is either a dangerous rival to
that old established firm, Job, or else he does not know enough bad
language to make it worth his while to start saying anything at all.

The great dream of its life is to lure you on into trying to catch
a train by it. For weeks and weeks it will keep the most perfect time.
If there were any difference in time between that clock and the sun,
you would be convinced it was the sun, not the clock, that wanted
seeing to. You feel that if that clock happened to get a quarter of
a second fast, or the eighth of an instant slow, it would break its
heart and die.

It is in this spirit of child-like faith in its integrity that, one
morning, you gather your family around you in the passage, kiss your
children, and afterward wipe your jammy mouth, poke your finger in
the baby's eye, promise not to forget to order the coals, wave at
last fond \emph{adieu} with the umbrella, and depart for the railway-station.

I never have been quite able to decide, myself, which is the more
irritating: to run two miles at the top of your speed, and then to
find, when you reach the station, that you are three-quarters of an
hour too early; or to stroll along leisurely the whole way, and dawdle
about outside the booking-office, talking to some local idiot, and
then to swagger carelessly on to the platform, just in time to see
the train go out!

As for the other class of clocks\mbox{---}the common or always-wrong
clocks\mbox{---}they are harmless enough. You wind them up at the
proper intervals, and once or twice a week you put them right and
{}``regulate'' them, as you call it (and you might just as well
try to {}``regulate'' a London tom-cat). But you do all this, not
from any selfish motives, but from a sense of duty to the clock itself.
You want to feel that, whatever may happen, you have done the right
thing by it, and that no blame can attach to you.

So far as looking to it for any return is concerned, that you never
dream of doing, and consequently you are not disappointed. You ask
what the time is, and the girl replies:

{}``Well, the clock in the dining-room says a quarter past two.''

But you are not deceived by this. You know that, as a matter of fact,
it must be somewhere between nine and ten in the evening; and, remembering
that you noticed, as a curious circumstance, that the clock was only
forty minutes past four, hours ago, you mildly admire its energies
and resources, and wonder how it does it.

I myself possess a clock that for complicated unconventionality and
light-hearted independence, could, I should think, give points to
anything yet discovered in the chronometrical line. As a mere time-piece,
it leaves much to be desired; but, considered as a self-acting conundrum,
it is full of interest and variety.

I heard of a man once who had a clock that he used to say was of no
good to any one except himself, because he was the only man who understood
it. He said it was an excellent clock, and one that you could thoroughly
depend upon; but you wanted to know it\mbox{---}to have studied its
system. An outsider might be easily misled by it.

{}``For instance,'' he would say, {}``when it strikes fifteen,
and the hands point to twenty minutes past eleven, I know it is a
quarter to eight.''

His acquaintanceship with that clock must certainly have given him
an advantage over the cursory observer!

But the great charm about my clock is its reliable uncertainty. It
works on no method whatever; it is a pure emotionalist. One day it
will be quite frolicsome, and gain three hours in the course of the
morning, and think nothing of it; and the next day it will wish it
were dead, and be hardly able to drag itself along, and lose two hours
out of every four, and stop altogether in the afternoon, too miserable
to do anything; and then, getting cheerful once more toward evening,
will start off again of its own accord.

I do not care to talk much about this clock; because when I tell the
simple truth concerning it, people think I am exaggerating.

It is very discouraging to find, when you are straining every nerve
to tell the truth, that people do not believe you, and fancy that
you are exaggerating. It makes you feel inclined to go and exaggerate
on purpose, just to show them the difference. I know I often feel
tempted to do so myself\mbox{---}it is my early training that saves
me.

We should always be very careful never to give way to exaggeration;
it is a habit that grows upon one.

And it is such a vulgar habit, too. In the old times, when poets and
dry-goods salesmen were the only people who exaggerated, there was
something clever and \textit{distingu\'{e}} about a reputation for
{}``a tendency to over, rather than to under-estimate the mere bald
facts.'' But everybody exaggerates nowadays. The art of exaggeration
is no longer regarded as an {}``extra'' in the modern bill of education;
it is an essential requirement, held to be most needful for the battle
of life.

The whole world exaggerates. It exaggerates everything, from the yearly
number of bicycles sold to the yearly number of heathens converted\mbox{---}into
the hope of salvation and more whiskey. Exaggeration is the basis
of our trade, the fallow-field of our art and literature, the groundwork
of our social life, the foundation of our political existence. As
schoolboys, we exaggerate our fights and our marks and our fathers'
debts. As men, we exaggerate our wares, we exaggerate our feelings,
we exaggerate our incomes\mbox{---}except to the tax-collector, and
to him we exaggerate our {}``outgoings''; we exaggerate our virtues;
we even exaggerate our vices, and, being in reality the mildest of
men, pretend we are dare-devil scamps.

We have sunk so low now that we try to \textit{act} our exaggerations,
and to live up to our lies. We call it {}``keeping up appearances;''
and no more bitter phrase could, perhaps, have been invented to describe
our childish folly.

If we possess a hundred pounds a year, do we not call it two? Our
larder may be low and our grates be chill, but we are happy if the
{}``world'' (six acquaintances and a prying neighbor) gives us credit
for one hundred and fifty. And, when we have five hundred, we talk
of a thousand, and the all-important and beloved {}``world'' (sixteen
friends now, and two of them carriage-folks!)\ agree that we really
must be spending seven hundred, or at all events, running into debt
up to that figure; but the butcher and baker, who have gone into the
matter with the housemaid, know better.

After awhile, having learned the trick, we launch out boldly and spend
like Indian Princes\mbox{---}or rather \textit{seem} to spend; for
we know, by this time, how to purchase the seeming with the seeming,
how to buy the appearance of wealth with the appearance of cash. And
the dear old world\mbox{---}Beelzebub bless it!\ for it is his own
child, sure enough; there is no mistaking the likeness, it has all
his funny little ways\mbox{---}gathers round, applauding and laughing
at the lie, and sharing in the cheat, and gloating over the thought
of the blow that it knows must sooner or later fall on us from the
Thor-like hammer of Truth.

And all goes merry as a witches' frolic\mbox{---}until the gray morning
dawns.

Truth and fact are old-fashioned and out-of-date, my friends, fit
only for the dull and vulgar to live by. Appearance, not reality,
is what the clever dog grasps at in these clever days. We spurn the
dull-brown solid earth; we build our lives and homes in the fair-seeming
rainbow-land of shadow and chimera.

To ourselves, sleeping and waking there, \textit{behind} the rainbow,
there is no beauty in the house; only a chill damp mist in every room,
and, over all, a haunting fear of the hour when the gilded clouds
will melt away, and let us fall\mbox{---}somewhat heavily, no doubt\mbox{---}upon
the hard world underneath.

But, there!\ of what matter is \textit{our} misery, \textit{our}
terror? To the stranger, our home appears fair and bright. The workers
in the fields below look up and envy us our abode of glory and delight!
If \textit{they} think it pleasant, surely \textit{we} should be content.
Have we not been taught to live for others and not for ourselves,
and are we not acting up bravely to the teaching\mbox{---}in this
most curious method?

Ah!\ yes, we are self-sacrificing enough, and loyal enough in our
devotion to this new-crowned king, the child of Prince Imposture and
Princess Pretense. Never before was despot so blindly worshiped! Never
had earthly sovereign yet such world-wide sway!

Man, if he would live, \textit{must} worship. He looks around, and
what to him, within the vision of his life, is the greatest and the
best, that he falls down and does reverence to. To him whose eyes
have opened on the nineteenth century, what nobler image can the universe
produce than the figure of Falsehood in stolen robes? It is cunning
and brazen and hollow-hearted, and it realizes his soul's ideal, and
he falls and kisses its feet, and clings to its skinny knees, swearing
fealty to it for evermore!

Ah!\ he is a mighty monarch, bladder-bodied King Humbug! Come, let
us build up temples of hewn shadows wherein we may adore him, safe
from the light. Let us raise him aloft upon our Brummagem shields.
Long live our coward, falsehearted chief!\mbox{---}fit leader for
such soldiers as we! Long live the Lord-of-Lies, anointed! Long live
poor King Appearances, to whom all mankind bows the knee!

But we must hold him aloft very carefully, oh, my brother warriors!
He needs much {}``keeping up.'' He has no bones and sinews of his
own, the poor old flimsy fellow! If we take our hands from him, he
will fall a heap of worn-out rags, and the angry wind will whirl him
away, and leave us forlorn. Oh, let us spend our lives keeping him
up, and serving him, and making him great\mbox{---}that is, evermore
puffed out with air and nothingness\mbox{---}until he burst, and
we along with him!

Burst one day he must, as it is in the nature of bubbles to burst,
especially when they grow big. Meanwhile, he still reigns over us,
and the world grows more and more a world of pretense and exaggeration
and lies; and he who pretends and exaggerates and lies the most successfully,
is the greatest of us all.

The world is a gingerbread fair, and we all stand outside our booths
and point to the gorgeous-colored pictures, and beat the big drum
and brag. Brag!\ brag! Life is one great game of brag!

{}``Buy my soap, oh ye people, and ye will never look old, and the
hair will grow again on your bald places, and ye will never be poor
or unhappy again,; and mine is the only true soap. Oh, beware of spurious
imitations!''

{}``Buy my lotion, all ye that suffer from pains in the head, or
the stomach, or the feet, or that have broken arms, or broken hearts,
or objectionable mothers-in-law; and drink one bottle a day, and all
your troubles will be ended.''

{}``Come to my church, all ye that want to go to Heaven, and buy
my penny weekly guide, and pay my pew-rates; and, pray ye, have nothing
to do with my misguided brother over the road.\  \textit{This} is
the only safe way!''

{}``Oh, vote for me, my noble and intelligent electors, and send
our party into power, and the world shall be a new place, and there
shall be no sin or sorrow any more! And each free and independent
voter shall have a bran new Utopia made on purpose for him, according
to his own ideas, with a good-sized, extra-unpleasant purgatory attached,
to which he can send everybody he does not like. Oh!\ do not miss
this chance!''

Oh!\ listen to my philosophy, it is the best and deepest. Oh!\ hear
my songs, they are the sweetest. Oh!\ buy my pictures, they alone
are true art. Oh!\ read my books, they are the finest.

Oh! \textit{I} am the greatest cheesemonger, \textit{I} am the greatest
soldier, \textit{I} am the greatest statesman, \textit{I} am the greatest
poet, \textit{I} am the greatest showman, \textit{I} am the greatest
mountebank, \textit{I} am the greatest editor, and \textit{I} am the
greatest patriot.\  \textit{We} are the greatest nation.\  \textit{We}
are the only good people.\  \textit{Ours} is the only true religion.
Bah!\ how we all yell!

How we all brag and bounce, and beat the drum and shout; and nobody
believes a word we utter; and the people ask one another, saying:

{}``How can we tell who is the greatest and the cleverest among all
these shrieking braggarts?''

And they answer:

{}``There is none great or clever. The great and clever men are not
here; there is no place for them in this pandemonium of charlatans
and quacks. The men you see here are crowing cocks. We suppose the
greatest and the best of \textit{them} are they who crow the loudest
and the longest; that is the only test of \textit{their} merits.''

Therefore, what is left for us to do, but to crow? And the best and
greatest of us all, is he who crows the loudest and the longest on
this little dunghill that we call our world!
\bigskip{}

Well, I was going to tell you about our clock.

It was my wife's idea, getting it, in the first instance. We had been
to dinner at the Buggles', and Buggles had just bought a \mbox{clock\mbox{---}}{}``picked
it up in Essex,'' was the way he described the transaction. Buggles
is always going about {}``picking up'' things. He will stand before
an old carved bedstead, weighing about three tons, and say:

{}``Yes\mbox{---}pretty little thing! I picked it up in Holland;''
as though he had found it by the roadside, and slipped it into his
umbrella when nobody was looking!

Buggles was rather full of this clock. It was of the good old-fashioned
{}``grandfather'' type. It stood eight feet high, in a carved-oak
case, and had a deep, sonorous, solemn tick, that made a pleasant
accompaniment to the after-dinner chat, and seemed to fill the room
with an air of homely dignity.

We discussed the clock, and Buggles said how he loved the sound of
its slow, grave tick; and how, when all the house was still, and he
and it were sitting up alone together, it seemed like some wise old
friend talking to him, and telling him about the old days and the
old ways of thought, and the old life and the old people.

The clock impressed my wife very much. She was very thoughtful all
the way home, and, as we went upstairs to our flat, she said, {}``Why
could not we have a clock like that?'' She said it would seem like
having some one in the house to take care of us all\mbox{---}she
should fancy it was looking after baby!

I have a man in Northamptonshire from whom I buy old furniture now
and then, and to him I applied. He answered by return to say that
he had got exactly the very thing I wanted.\  (He always has. I am
very lucky in this respect.) It was the quaintest and most old-fashioned
clock he had come across for a long while, and he enclosed photograph
and full particulars; should he send it up?

From the photograph and the particulars, it seemed, as he said, the
very thing, and I told him, {}``Yes; send it up at once.''

Three days afterward, there came a knock at the door\mbox{---}there
had been other knocks at the door before this, of course; but I am
dealing merely with the history of the clock. The girl said a couple
of men were outside, and wanted to see me, and I went to them.

I found they were Pickford's carriers, and glancing at the way-bill,
I saw that it was my clock that they had brought, and I said, airily,
{}``Oh, yes, it's quite right; bring it up!''

They said they were very sorry, but that was just the difficulty.
They could not get it up.

I went down with them, and wedged securely across the second landing
of the staircase, I found a box which I should have judged to be the
original case in which Cleopatra's Needle came over.

They said that was my clock.

I brought down a chopper and a crowbar, and we sent out and collected
in two extra hired ruffians and the five of us worked away for half
an hour and got the clock out; after which the traffic up and down
the staircase was resumed, much to the satisfaction of the other tenants.

We then got the clock upstairs and put it together, and I fixed it
in the corner of the dining-room.

At first it exhibited a strong desire to topple over and fall on people,
but by the liberal use of nails and screws and bits of firewood, I
made life in the same room with it possible, and then, being exhausted,
I had my wounds dressed, and went to bed.

In the middle of the night my wife woke me up in a great state of
alarm, to say that the clock had just struck thirteen, and who did
I think was going to die?

I said I did not know, but hoped it might be the next-door dog.

My wife said she had a presentiment it meant baby. There was no comforting
her; she cried herself to sleep again.

During the course of the morning, I succeeded in persuading her that
she must have made a mistake, and she consented to smile once more.
In the afternoon the clock struck thirteen again.

This renewed all her fears. She was convinced now that both baby and
I were doomed, and that she would be left a childless widow. I tried
to treat the matter as a joke, and this only made her more wretched.
She said that she could see I really felt as she did, and was only
pretending to be light-hearted for her sake, and she said she would
try and bear it bravely.

The person she chiefly blamed was Buggles.

In the night the clock gave us another warning, and my wife accepted
it for her Aunt Maria, and seemed resigned. She wished, however, that
I had never had the clock, and wondered when, if ever, I should get
cured of my absurd craze for filling the house with tomfoolery.

The next day the clock struck thirteen four times and this cheered
her up. She said that if we were all going to die, it did not so much
matter. Most likely there was a fever or a plague coming, and we should
all be taken together.

She was quite light-hearted over it!

After that the clock went on and killed every friend and relation
we had, and then it started on the neighbors.

It struck thirteen all day long for months, until we were sick of
slaughter, and there could not have been a human being left alive
for miles around.

Then it turned over a new leaf, and gave up murdering folks, and took
to striking mere harmless thirty-nines and forty-ones. Its favorite
number now is thirty-two, but once a day it strikes forty-nine. It
never strikes more than forty-nine. I don't know why\mbox{---}I have
never been able to understand why\mbox{---}but it doesn't.

It does not strike at regular intervals, but when it feels it wants
to and would be better for it. Sometimes it strikes three or four
times within the same hour, and at other times it will go for half-a-day
without striking at all.

He is an odd old fellow!

I have thought now and then of having him {}``seen to,'' and made
to keep regular hours and be respectable; but, somehow, I seem to
have grown to love him as he is with his daring mockery of Time.

He certainly has not much respect for it. He seems to go out of his
way almost to openly insult it. He calls half-past two thirty-eight
o'clock, and in twenty minutes from then he says it is one!

Is it that he really has grown to feel contempt for his master, and
wishes to show it? They say no man is a hero to his valet; may it
be that even stony-face Time himself is but a short-lived, puny mortal\mbox{---}a
little greater than some others, that is all\mbox{---}to the dim
eyes of this old servant of his? Has he, ticking, ticking, all these
years, come at last to see into the littleness of that Time that looms
so great to our awed human eyes?

Is he saying, as he grimly laughs, and strikes his thirty-fives and
forties: {}``Bah! I know you, Time, godlike and dread though you
seem. What are you but a phantom\mbox{---}a dream\mbox{---}like
the rest of us here? Ay, less, for you will pass away and be no more.
Fear him not, immortal men. Time is but the shadow of the world upon
the background of Eternity!''
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