Gravely the clockmaker reflected.
"I"m afraid I haven"t much more use for water routes just at present than you have," answered he. "I will, however, make a bargain with you.
I will advance to you some more of what I know about that clock, if you will pledge yourself to let me have the water routes should I require them. Is that a bargain?"
"I"ll sign up to that," came without hesitation from the lad. "In fact, after thinking it over, I guess it would be wiser for me not to agree to deliver the goods immediately. I"ll have to hunt them up and--and--dust them first," concluded he with an impish grimace.
"I certainly should insist they be handed over in good condition,"
a.s.serted McPhearson. "That would be only fair since what I give you in return is new and up to date. This clock on the insurance building is one of the most unique timepieces yet made. You cannot expect to receive information about it without offering something pretty valuable in exchange."
"No, indeed."
"That water route from St. Paul, for instance--I should never accept it if it began well and afterward became vague and uncertain; and should you break it off before you reached Philadelphia and excuse yourself by telling me that you had forgotten it--"
"You broke off about the clock, you know," interrupted Christopher.
"Yes. Nevertheless, I cannot be accused of having forgotten the information, and to prove it I will say that what I intended to add was that at night the numerals on the dial are not only illuminated but a flashlight from the tower sends out the time to those too far away either to see the face of the clock or hear it strike. A series of white flashes mark the hours, and the quarter hours are indicated by red flashes. Out over the land shoot these lights--out over the sea too. It is a mighty beacon--a great, throbbing, live thing that from its place high above the city keeps constant watch and slumbers not nor sleeps."
Christopher looked into the old man"s eyes.
"I don"t believe," ventured he, with a wistful expression, "it would be fair to swap any of the stuff I know for yours. You see, the things you have stored away in your mind are so much--so much finer."
"They weren"t at first, laddie," returned McPhearson kindly. "I gathered a deal of worthless material before it occurred to me I could improve its quality. Then one day I said to myself, "Why isn"t it just as possible to collect beautiful and interesting thoughts as to collect stamps, or china teapots, or anything else?" So I set about weeding out the good from the unprofitable and found the scheme worked perfectly. If you don"t believe it, try the plan yourself sometime, sonny."
"I"m going to," affirmed Christopher with earnest emphasis.
The Scotchman bent to file the tooth of a small bra.s.s wheel.
"Before we drop the subject of giant clocks," continued he presently, "I must warn you not to forget the monster newly set up by the Colgates on their building that skirts the Jersey sh.o.r.e of the Hudson. It is a veritable t.i.tan with a dial fifty feet in diameter and hands measuring thirty-seven and a quarter feet and twenty-seven and a half feet in length. For miles down New York harbor it is visible, a formidable contestant for world supremacy."
"Clocks seem to grow bigger and bigger, don"t they?" mused the boy.
"I hope they grow better and better--a far finer achievement, to my way of thinking," was the craftsman"s answer.
CHAPTER XIII
CLOCKS ON LAND AND CLOCKS AT SEA
Christmas came and went, January pa.s.sed, and February was well on its way, and still Christopher did not tire of coming into the city with his father each morning and spending the day at the store. He had found many little ways in which he could be useful and as a result he now had something to do to keep him from becoming bored and discontented. He could, for example, help deliver the sorted mail to the different departments and do various minor errands for McPhearson, toward whom he had come to entertain a genuine affection.
In the meantime he had been every week to see the oculist and each time had been commended for his patience and urged to be resigned to idleness a little longer.
"You"ll gain in the end if you hold off until the year is out," said the doctor. "Remember, you have in all probability a long stretch of years ahead of you to the very last moment of which you will need your eyes.
Therefore you cannot afford to injure them thus early in the game, for if you do you will never be able to beg, borrow, or steal another pair.
What do a few short months amount to when weighed against a lifetime?"
It was a telling argument and immediately the lad sensed the worth of it.
"I figure you"re right, Doctor Corbin," responded he bravely. "I"ll peg away at being lazy for another spell. But don"t keep me loafing any longer than you have to, will you? You see, just lately I have begun to be anxious to get back to my books. There are lots of things I want to hunt up and learn."
"Blessings brighten as they vanish, eh?" smiled the physician. "Well, it is something to have that impulse. Hold on to it; and when at last you have your books don"t forget how fortunate you are to have them."
"I sha"n"t--believe me!"
Accordingly Christopher gathered together his courage and as he himself expressed it _bucked up_ to endure a prolonged period of inactivity. "I shall depend on you to cheer me up, Mr. McPhearson," announced he after recounting to the sympathetic Scotchman the doctor"s decision. "If it weren"t for you, I don"t know what I"d do."
"Pooh! Nonsense! Non--_sense_! You"d find ways enough to amuse yourself without the help of an old fossil like me, I guess," bl.u.s.tered the clockmaker. Nevertheless it was plain to be seen the words pleased him, for he was a kind man who enjoyed doing a service for another. Moreover, Christopher had worn a path to his lonely heart and his boyish gladness transformed each day into a novelty to be antic.i.p.ated.
Once when Mr. Burton had remained in the city to attend a dinner at the Lotus Club, McPhearson had persuaded his employer to allow the boy to go home with him and remain until the function was over. Ah, what an evening the two cronies had together that night! The Scotchman grilled chops in his tiny kitchenette and baked macaroni too; and made ambrosial hot chocolate. Then there were hot rolls, fancy cakes, and ice cream that appeared as it by magic from goodness only knew where. And afterward, when the little flat had been tidied up (a task in which Christopher shared), McPhearson got out his flute and such wonderful old Scotch airs as he played! "Ye Banks and Braes o" Bonnie Doon," "Annie Laurie," "Mary of Argyle," "The Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee"--he knew them all and scores of others.
There was a fire in the microscopic fireplace, there was a box of candy, and there was plenty of fun and good talk. Later they had gone to see the big Metropolitan Life Insurance clock and watch its shooting red and white lights. Seldom had Christopher pa.s.sed so happy an evening or one that flew by so quickly.
When Mr. Burton came with the taxi to take him home it was almost unbelievable it could really be eleven o"clock.
"I hope my son hasn"t tired you all out, McPhearson," said the head of the firm. "It was very kind of you to bother with him."
"It was kind of you to let him come."
[Ill.u.s.tration: Ah, what an evening the two cronies had together that night. _Page_ 164.]
That was all the old man vouchsafed. He wasn"t one given to talking much about the things he cherished deeply. But more than once after the boy had gone he recalled the picture the lad had made sitting there in the firelight; remembered the brightness of his smile and the gayety of his laughter. Even a flute could not furnish music as light-hearted. It was long since anything so joyous had echoed through the dim, dingy rooms.
He wished he could fool himself into believing he was as young as he felt that night.
"Perhaps," observed he the next day, when Christopher referred to the evening, "your father will let you come again sometime. He may have another dinner or a meeting of some sort that will keep him in town."
"I wish he would," exclaimed Christopher heartily.
They were sitting together at the repairing bench, the clockmaker busy with an old chronometer.
"That"s a new variety of puzzle, isn"t it?" commented the boy, motioning toward it.
"Oh, I tinker a chronometer once in a while," McPhearson answered. "I don"t get them often, though."
"What on earth are they for?"
"You don"t know?" The Scotchman raised his brows with surprise.
"Not really. I a.s.sociate them vaguely with the sea and ships."
"So far, so good," granted the elder man.
"But the trouble is that"s as far as I can go," Christopher said.
"Bless me!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed McPhearson.