Part 18 (1/2)
By the time he and his father returned to the store, however, they were practically normal, and he ascended to the fourth floor to hunt up McPhearson, who amid the general excitement he had left somewhat abruptly.
”Well, so you landed your light-fingered friend, did you, laddie?”
remarked the Scotchman.
”Mr. Corrigan did.”
”It was thanks to you, I guess.”
”Partly!”
”Humph! You don't seem very triumphant about it.” The old man peered at the boy over the top of his gla.s.ses.
”I'm not. It made me sick--the whole thing.”
”I know, sonny--I know. But we can't have such persons about,”
McPhearson said gently. ”Of course you are sorry to put a fellow behind the bars, but--”
”He was so darned decent about it--and so plucky,” exclaimed Christopher. ”Why, he was almost a gentleman.”
The sentence ended in a tremulous laugh.
”No doubt he may have started out to be a gentleman--poor chap--and then got on the wrong track. Well, you did what was right. You know that.”
”I hope so,” was the dull answer.
”We'll not talk about it any more. Come, let's s.h.i.+ft the subject to something else.”
”To clocks?”
”Aren't you tired of clocks?”
”No. Are you?”
”I never get tired of them,” smiled McPhearson. ”If I did, it would be fatal. They are my daily bread.”
”And mine, too, for that matter,” rejoined Christopher.
”Perhaps,” admitted the Scotchman. ”Still you do not subsist wholly on clocks. Your bread is studded with pearls, emeralds, and rubies.”
The fancy pleased the boy, and he laughed.
”Rather indigestible eating,” he protested.
”And yet you look fit as a king.”
There was a moment's pause; then the man said:
”Well, if we are to talk clocks, where shall we begin?”
”Anywhere you like,” returned the lad, with a shrug of his shoulders.
”Suppose, then, since you are so docile and accommodating, we leap to somewhere near the year 1650, when the inspiration to attach the pallets of the escapement to the pendulum rod, thereby making the escapement horizontal, came almost simultaneously to an Englishman named Harris and a Dutchman named Huyghens. These, together with the later ideas of anchor escapement evolved by Graham, put clocks, within the span of a few years, on an almost modern basis. Other improvements such as using steel springs in place of weights and the perfecting of movements have of course been made since; but this period covers the time of most vital improvement in the art of clockmaking. At this time, too, some of the finest of old English watches and clocks were made.