Our move-in took place in no furtive or clandestine fashion; our
installation of ourselves in our semi-detached was performed well under the
eye of the neighbouring public. Our furniture waited on the public
thoroughfare until our new home was ready to receive it. Small children
played games on our sofa; enthusiastic acquaintances played tunes on our
piano. In a word, our move-in was a local festival; everyone took part.
This is the sad tale of the man who took the most expensive part--the
clock.
If the hard choice had been put to Diana, my wife, to say which she could
least sorrowfully part with, me or the clock, the clock would have stayed.
If I had been put to the same dismal alternative as to Diana or the clock,
Diana would have gone. In fact, directly the clock was safely in Diana had
gone out. That was all she cared about; small children might play on the
sofa, enthusiastic acquaintances might play on the piano, and I might toil
unremittingly with everything else, for all Diana cared. So, the clock
being in, out she went upon her lawful or unlawful purposes. As she
departed she said something about my seeing to the clock. I remembered that
later on, but I remembered it wrong. This is how I did it.
The man sat a little on my own special chair (at that time on the pavement)
before he came in. I asked him what he was sitting there for. He got up and
came inside. Then I asked him what he had come in for, and he said, "The
clock." I looked at the clock and it had stopped. I gave it a shake, and it
still stopped. He said it was no good shaking it; that only annoyed it. He
said he had come to look after it. He then took off his hat and his coat,
moved the fingers about, put his ears to it to hear its heart beating, and
asked me what I had been doing to it. I said I hadn't been doing anything
to it; he watched me doing things to everything else, and adopted an
expression as if to say he didn't believe me. He gave me the feeling that I
was a very interfering person, and that he didn't want to have anything
more to do with me. He said he should have to take the clock away. I asked
him when he would bring it back. He said he didn't know. He appeared to
take a pessimistic view of it. I asked him cheerfully if he would _ever_
bring it back. He gave me a contemptuous look and, without another word,
went, taking the clock with him.
When Diana came back she asked where the clock was. I said it had gone.
"Gone where?" asked Diana. I said I didn't know; the man had taken it.
"What man?" asked Diana. I was trying to move the sofa at the moment and I
was inclined to be short-spoken. I said that the man who had taken it was,
no doubt, the man whom Diana had gone forth to find and bid take away our
clock. Diana said that, if the man had said that she had said that he might
take our clock away, the man was a liar. _Had_ the man said that she had
said he might take the clock away? The answer was in the negative.
Then the truth emerged. The man had stolen our clock. I had assisted the
man to steal our clock, helping him to lift it off its perch and handing
him his bowler hat as he left.
It all sounds incredible, doesn't it? But you will admit, I am sure, that
it is a thing which could quite easily happen to anyone. Isn't it?
To be quite frank, I have improved the story a bit. The clock wasn't really
stolen.
Was the man really taking it away to repair it? No; to tell you the truth
he didn't actually take it away at all. In fact, I might as well own that
no man ever came into the house while I was shifting the furniture in from
the street. And, if you want to know, I never had a clock ... nor a wife
... nor a house.
The mere fact of my pretending that there _are_ such things as semi-
detacheds for people to move into these days ought to have put you wise
from the start that the whole tale was a fabrication.
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