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--except when you rely upon it, and then it is more
wrong than you would think a clock _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.