CHRISTOPHER MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE
The jewelry house of Burton and Norcross occupied four stories of a
corner fronting two busy city streets and before its gem-filled windows
a group of passers-by were continually standing.
On cushions of velvet lay an alluring display of rings, broaches,
necklaces, and costly frivolities of every description while on other
cushions ticked watches varying from toy affairs on ribbons to more
serious-intentioned and dignified repeaters.
All day and indeed all night, for that matter, a white light beat down
upon this flashing outlay, and before it envious spectators flattened
their noses against the massive plate glass and dreamed idle dreams of
possession.
"Say, Jim, ain't that red stone with the diamonds round it a peach? Gee,
but I'd like a thing like that on my finger! How much do you s'pose
you'd have to pay for it?"
"A cool hundred, likely."
"Go on!"
"Sure you would. Them red stones are rubies and they cost like the
dickens. I ain't sure you wouldn't have to pay mor'n a hundred for that
ring."
"Humph! I see myself doin' it!"
"So do I!"
"Well, you needn't rub it in. Anyhow, even if I had the price, I'd
rather spend it on a Ford."
"What's the matter with havin' 'em both? You're full as likely to have
one as the other; come on. What's the good of standin' here lettin' your
mouth water over things there's no hope of your gettin'? Let's call it
off an' go to a picture show."
A moment later another pair would saunter up and stop.
"Oh, Mame, look at that diamond necklace! Isn't it wonderful! Do you
s'pose it's real?"
"Real! You bet your life it's real! You won't catch Burton and Norcross
putting fake diamonds in their window. Come along, for heaven's sake;
I'm starving and want my lunch. It's no use to hang round here staring
in."
"I can look, can't I?"
"If you want to, yes. Lookin's a cheap entertainment. You're silly to do
it though. It'll only get you out of sorts."
So babbled the crowd.
A listener might have amused himself the whole day long enjoying the
comments of the throng had he nothing better to do than loiter near by.
Unfortunately, however, the corner did not foster extended loitering. It
was far too busy a spot. About it swirled and surged an eddy of
shoppers, all hurrying this way and that and jostling one another so
mercilessly that he who did not make one of the current and move with
the stream was all but exterminated. Like a tidal wave, the ruthless
concourse swept past, bearing with it everything that obstructed its
path. You went whether you would or no, and afterward you stepped into a
doorway, caught your breath, straightened your hat, and tried to
remember what it was you had intended to do.
By contrast the interior of Burton and Norcross was painfully still. The
moment a visitor crossed its threshold he realized that. As if he had
left behind him a stormy sea and now come into quiet waters, he stood
amid its hush, conscious of his every footfall and the very intonations
of his voice. Instinctively he immediately pitched his tones lower and
drew himself to his full height when he traversed the marble floor that
separated the bordering show cases.
Individuals counted for more here than they did outside--far more. A
person who came into Burton and Norcross sensed whether his tie was awry
or his shoes unshined, and so did everybody else. For if you entered the
shop at all, you entered it deliberately. No one ever strolled or
sauntered into Burton and Norcross. It wasn't that sort of place. You
would no more have ambled aimlessly along its center aisle, frankly
proclaiming to all the world your opinion of what it had to sell, than
you would casually have invaded the Court of St. James or Windsor
Castle. Ambling was not done there. Nobody ambled. Even Mr. Burton
himself didn't. Although he was the senior partner and could have
claimed the privilege of ambling had he chosen, the shop transformed him
just as it did everybody else. Once within its portals he became more
erect, more commanding--in fact, a different human being
altogether--and proceeded to announce right and left in accents never
employed by him anywhere else that it was a beautiful day.
On this particular morning Christopher, who tagged meekly at his heels,
fervently subscribed to the sentiment he advanced. It was a beautiful
day. Almost any day, so new in the adventure of setting forth for a peep
into the business world, would have seemed beautiful. And yet there was
really nothing very novel in going to the store, for since a small boy
he had been accustomed to being taken there to meet his father.
Sometimes such excursions culminated in new shoes or a new overcoat;
sometimes in a pair of skates or in luncheon; and on a very red-letter
day, such as a birthday or anniversary of some sort, in a matinee or
moving-picture show.
Therefore Christopher was no stranger either to the plush-lined cases
and their sparkling contents or to the men who presided over them.
Everybody knew him by sight--doormen, salesmen, elevator boys,
watchmakers, bookkeepers, and messengers. He was the son of the boss,
Christopher Mark Antony Burton, fourth.
There were, alas, times when Christopher wished from the bottom of his
heart he had been less well known. To be regarded as the future heir to
all this splendor kept those he met in the establishment painfully
deferential and created an estranging gulf 'twixt him and all that was
human and interesting.
If, for example, when he bobbed unexpectedly into the elevator, old
Joseph, its colored operator, had only kept right on munching an apple
instead of whisking it out of sight into his pocket, how much pleasanter
it would have been! Then, too, the men all insisted on calling him
_sir_, which embarrassed him and made him feel very young and foolish.
He had never desired to be a person of privilege for in spite of his
sonorous name, Christopher was very democratic.
Probably if left to himself he would within twenty-four hours have been
on the friendliest of terms with everybody in the shop. But in the
background loomed his father of whom every employee stood in awe, and
whose imposing presence they never forgot for one instant. You did not
forget Mr. Christopher Mark Antony Burton, third, senior partner of the
firm; he did not let you.
It was for this reason that Christopher the fourth made his advent into
the great shop with less joy and abandon than he would have done had
conditions been otherwise. He was politely welcomed but not cordially.
That would not have been fitting.
"Now what will you do to amuse yourself, son?" inquired Mr. Burton,
after Tim had bowed them in the front door and called the elevator. "You
are to please yourself. I shall be too busy to give a thought to you."
"Oh, I don't expect to be entertained," returned Christopher brightly.
"Don't have me on your mind at all. I'll look after myself."
"That's right! That's right!" exclaimed his father, as if relieved by
the intelligence. "You are welcome to go anywhere you like. Everybody
knows you by sight and understands you are to be around here for a
while. Just don't get into mischief. And see you are ready promptly at
one to go to luncheon with me."
"You can count on me for that!"
"I'll wager I can."
With these words Mr. Burton opened the door of his office and
disappeared.
Christopher hung up his hat and coat and hesitated uncertainly for a
moment. He did not really know what he wanted to do. A general
atmosphere of business of which he became instantly aware made him feel
like an intruder. The men greeted him, it is true, but with minds
focused far less on the salutation than on the various missions that
drove them hither and thither.
There was something almost ludicrous about the seriousness with which
they took this matter of rings and necklaces. One would have thought the
affairs of a nation occupied them, so anxious and hurried were they.
He sauntered along the balcony in the wake of a red-cheeked young clerk
who had bowed to him pleasantly and looked less as if he were speeding
to save a burning ship or warn the king he was about to be blown up than
did some of the others; and when this guide turned into a long,
brilliantly lighted room, Christopher, having nothing better to do,
entered too.
"You haven't finished that bracket clock yet, have you, McPhearson?"
called the salesman, approaching a little old man who with a microscope
to one eye was bending over a bench littered with small steel tools.
"Not yet, Bailey," the clockmaker replied without, however, looking up.
"She's a queer piece, that clock--not one for ordinary treatment."
"But you can put her in shape, can't you?" came a bit anxiously from
Bailey.
At the words a slow smile puckered the Scotchman's lips and for the
first time he stole a glance at the speaker.
"Don't fret, Bailey," he drawled.
"I'm not fretting, Mr. McPhearson. But the woman who owns that clock
won't sleep nights until she gets it home again."
"I don't blame her," was all McPhearson said.
"It's a good one, eh?"
"It's a dandy. I'd give my head for one like it. Genuine from start to
finish and listed in the book. It was made by Richard Parsons of Number
15 Goswell Street, London, somewhere about 1720--at least he is down as
a member of the Clockmakers' Company right along then. Pity he can't
know his handiwork is still doing duty. He'd be proud of it. Two hundred
years or more isn't a bad record for a clock."
"Two hundred years!" gasped Christopher involuntarily.
McPhearson peeped up over his microscope.
"This is Mr. Burton's son, McPhearson," put in Bailey.
"I know, I know. I've seen him round here ever since he could toddle.
Good morning, youngster. So you've come to explore the repairing
department, have you?"
The informality of the greeting was delightful to Christopher, and
immediately his heart went out to the old Scotchman.
"I guess so, yes," smiled he. "I didn't know I was going to though. It
just happened."
"It's not a bad happen, perhaps. Make yourself at home, laddie. Here's a
stool."
"I'd rather stand and watch you."
"But I sha'n't let you. It makes me nervous to have somebody hanging
over my shoulder and maybe jogging my elbow. If you're to stay you must
sit," was the brusque but not unkindly answer.
Somewhat crestfallen the boy slipped to the stool and for a few moments
remained immovable, watching the workman's busy fingers. How carefully
they moved--with what fascinating deftness and rapidity!
"I see you are not one to keep hitching and twiddling around," the
clockmaker presently remarked, with a twinkle. "We shall get on famously
together. I detest nervous people."
"Are you fixing the clock Mr. Bailey was asking about?" Christopher
ventured.
"Not just now, sonny. I am finishing up a simpler job. I shall go back
to her in a minute, however. You can't just tinker her at will as you do
common clocks. She has to be dreamed over."
"Dreamed over!" repeated Christopher, not a little puzzled.
"Aye, dreamed over! Well-nigh prayed over--if it comes to that,"
continued the old man gravely. "She isn't the sort that was turned out
in a factory, you see, along with hundreds of others of her kind. She's
an aristocrat and must be treated accordingly."
"Do you mean it--_she_--was made by hand?"
"Every wheel and rivet of her!"
"But I thought the works of all clocks were alike," asserted
Christopher.
"Bless your heart, no. Nowadays most of them are; and there are
advantages in it too, for when a part gives out, you can easily get
another to replace it. But years ago in the days of the clockmakers'
guilds, clocks were made by hand and were frequently entirely the work
of one man--except perhaps the case, which was sometimes made by a
joiner."
"Oh!"
"This old bracket clock, for instance, that I was speaking of--a fellow
named Richard Parsons, who belonged to the London Clockmakers' Company
between 1690 and 1730, made her from start to finish. You will see his
name painted on the dial, and engraved on the works is his address. The
jealous old clockmakers kept their eye on those who were manufacturing
clocks, I can tell you. They weren't going to have a lot of cheap,
poorly made articles shunted off on the public to ruin their trade. No,
indeed. A man must serve a long apprenticeship before he could be
admitted to the Clockmakers' Company and once enrolled must put his
address in all his clocks so everybody would know he had a right to make
and sell them."
"It wasn't a bad idea."
"Not at all bad. Nevertheless, the clockmakers were a stern, tyrannical
lot. Nobody within twenty miles of London was allowed to make a clock
unless enrolled in their organization. Moreover, they got from the king
a right of search which enabled them to go in and seize any goods which
they suspected fell below the standard. Not only did they want to be
sure no poor clocks were made but they also wished to keep the monopoly
of all the timepieces turned out.
"For example, when war in France drove many of the French artisans to
England, up rose the London clockmakers to protest against any of the
French makers practicing their craft within their domains. Fortunately
the petition was denied and at length these skilled workmen were
enrolled in the company and together with their descendants gave to
England some of her most beautiful clocks. But the old guild members did
not suffer it without a wrench, I can tell you."
McPhearson took up a small screwdriver and proceeded to fasten the back
on to the clock he held in his hand.
"It wasn't all smooth sailing, being a clockmaker in those days," he
declared. "What wonder the horologers were jealous of their art? Just
remember there were no factories to produce for you the screws, rivets,
wheels, and parts you needed. You yourself had to make everything with
the scant supply of tools at your command, usually a file, drill, and
hammer. With these you hammered out your brass wheels to the required
thickness, notched the teeth in their edges with the file, and fitted
them into place. And when you consider that with this crude equipment
you were expected to turn out a mechanism delicate enough to tell time,
I am sure you will agree the stern old clockmakers had something on
their side."
"They sure had!" Christopher exclaimed with enthusiasm.
"It is a glory to this Richard Parsons' skill that two hundred years
after he made his clock it is still accurately performing its task. If
anything I made was in existence at the end of a like stretch of time
and was continuing to be useful, I should feel I had a right to be
proud, shouldn't you?"
"You bet I would. Nothing I make ever stays together more than a week."
The Scotchman laughed at the boyish confession.
"Now you can understand, I guess, why I sent Bailey away, telling him I
should have to dream over this bracket clock. Two hundred years is a
long time and methods have changed greatly since then. Therefore in
order to repair such a product, I shall have to think myself back into
the year 1700 and work in the fashion Richard Parsons did; otherwise I
cannot successfully take up his handiwork. A clockmaker has to have
imagination, you see."
"I never thought of that."
"It is such puzzles as these that make my trade interesting," McPhearson
observed. "If every clock that came to me was of precisely the same
pattern as every other, the work I do would be monotonous enough. But
it is because clocks are as different as people that they pique my
curiosity. Even those turned out in factories, for example, are never
twice alike."
"I should think those would _have_ to be alike," Christopher responded.
"You'd think so, and so would I if I had not handled so many and learned
otherwise. No, every clock has its personality, its little tricks. One
doesn't like a cold room, perhaps, and as a protest will stop or lose
time; another shows its disapproval of the heat by being ten minutes
fast. Still another balks at an incline in the mantelpiece, so slight
that nobody can see it, and will not tick even. So it goes. And it is
not always the most expensive clocks and watches, either, that keep the
best time, for sometimes a cheap affair will, for reasons not to be
fathomed, put to shame your costly one. Not infrequently I take to
pieces a fine clock or watch and fail to find anything the matter with
it, and yet it will not go as it should. The creatures actually seem to
be stubborn and take notions just as people do."
"I'd no idea clocks were like that," mused Christopher.
"That's because you haven't lived with them more than half a century as
I have," the old man returned in friendly fashion. "I've summered and
wintered them, you see, for fifty years and know their tricks and their
manners. But this clock of Richard Parsons has no such caprices. It is a
fine, sensible clock that goes faithfully about its business unless
hindered by the lack of a rivet or a drop of oil. Just now its chimes
are bothering; but we'll have them right after a little."
"Has it chimes?"
"Aye, surely. It has eight bells, though it is a small clock for the
table or mantelpiece. The people of 1700 loved music and so did the
clockmakers. Therefore clocks like this, that would play a different
tune every day of the week, were in great demand. Maybe you never
happened to see an old bracket clock of the long ago."
"No, I never did." Christopher shook his head.
"I'll go and fetch it. To tell you the truth, I put it away so it
shouldn't be a temptation to me. Otherwise I'd be fussing with it and
letting commonplace things such as this go."
McPhearson rose and shuffled away, only to return a few moments later
carrying the bracket clock by its brass handle.
"So you never saw an old fellow like this, eh?" inquired he with evident
satisfaction.
"No. I certainly never saw a clock with a brass handle on top to carry
it by," confessed Christopher.
"And what do you say to its glass back and its beautifully chased
works?" McPhearson turned his treasure round. "It was made to set on a
table you see, or before the mirror that hung above the fireplace, in
either of which spots the back of it would show almost as much as the
front. Therefore its works were engraved, that one side should be quite
as pleasing as the other."
"It's a beauty, isn't it?"
[Illustration: "So you never saw an old fellow like this, eh?"
_Page_ 24.]
"Well, you won't see many like it," the Scotchman asserted proudly. "Not
but what a good number of them were turned out in England between 1670
and 1750. But that was a long while ago, and things get scattered and
are crowded out by newer fashions; besides, antique clocks are not
always cared for and kept running. Then, too, it isn't always possible
to find people who understand repairing such old fellows," McPhearson
explained modestly. "As I said, they have to be taken as special cases
and no end of thought put into them. More clocks are ruined by ignorant
doctoring than by anything else. This one, thank goodness, has evidently
always had intelligent care; if it hadn't it would not be ticking now."
Gently the man put his burden on the workbench.
It was a square clock with arched top and brass feet; and its face,
suggesting that of a grandfather clock, was quaintly decorated with
garlands of red roses. It had beautifully pierced hands, small brass
cherub's heads at the corners, and at the top a single small hand
pointed to its musical repertoire which consisted of: cotillion, jig,
minuet, song, air, dance, and hymn.
"You can take your choice of tunes, you see," explained McPhearson.
"There is one for every day of the week. All you have to do is to shift
the indicator round to what your want to hear. It chimes every three
hours--at six, nine, twelve, and three o'clock, and just before the
music begins, it strikes one to indicate the hour."
"I wish I could hear it play."
"You shall by and by. And you may select the tune if you like. It has a
pretty tone, something like that of a music box; and the selections are
pretty, too--old-fashioned airs that were familiar to the people of that
day and are now curious and interesting. I want you to notice the brass
spandrels while you are about it, for it is those that do much in
helping us determine the dates when old clocks were made."
"I'm afraid I don't know what a spandrel is," Christopher announced with
appealing frankness.
"And what marvel? How should you?" his companion replied pleasantly.
"You have been such a good listener that I was forgetting you had not
been brought up among clocks as I have been. Well, a spandrel is the
small brass ornament at the corner that fills in the triangular gap left
between the circular face and the square outline of the case. Some
clocks have four of these, others such as this one only two. These
ornaments were roughly cast in brass and afterward more carefully
lacquered and finished by the clockmaker himself. Sometimes, however, we
find them crudely executed as if they had been taken direct from the
mold. Clockmakers of that time were not so inventive as we; neither had
they had training in design, and as a result we see little variety in
these brass ornamentations. At one period all these spandrels took the
form of cherub's heads, an idea that may possibly have been copied from
the Italians. Later a pattern with two cherubs supporting a crown was
popular; and at a still later date the head of the cherub set in a
scroll is found. That is the pattern on this one. The brass basketwork
across the top is a relic of the old bird-cage clock which just
preceded this one, and was cast by the metalsmith and then purchased by
the clockmaker as were the spandrels.
"Since we know the approximate date that such metal work was done and
have in addition Richard Parsons' name listed among the London
Clockmakers' Company together with his address, there is pretty positive
evidence that this antique is genuine."
"Was a list of all the London clockmakers kept?" questioned Christopher
incredulously.
"Of those who belonged to the Clockmakers' Company, yes; but there were
many excellent makers who lived in the country and therefore did not
belong to this guild. Those who were members were, you may be moderately
certain, fine workmen. For that matter you may rest assured that any old
clock of early make which is still doing duty is a good clock; it would
not be going now if it weren't."
"Of course. But Richard Parsons was really in the list, was he?"
"He was; his name, address, date of apprenticeship and the name of the
maker to whom he was apprenticed; also the dates when he was admitted to
the most worshipful Clockmakers' Company. So you see, although he lived
long ago, Richard Parsons is no stranger to us."
"It makes you feel different when you know who he was, doesn't it?"
commented Christopher slowly.
"Yes, and his work helps us to know a good deal about him too, for no
lazy, careless person turned out such a clock as this. We must
nevertheless take into consideration that in 1700 men had the leisure
for careful handiwork. Nobody was in a hurry in those days. Richard
Parsons, in his shop at Number 15 Goswell Street, had all the time in
the world to make his clock, and could fuss about and experiment to his
heart's content. Probably no one ever thought of jogging him on or
pestering him to know if his work wasn't done."
Ruefully McPhearson shrugged his shoulders.
"Now I couldn't make a clock even were I so minded," he continued with a
whimsical smile. "Mr. Bailey and a score of others as anxious as he
would be prancing in here every half-hour to find out when it would be
finished. They would expect it to be made, wound up, and ticking, inside
a week. It was not so in the days of Queen Anne." The Scotchman sighed,
then added, "Sometimes I envy them their leisure."
Once more he turned the clock round so Christopher could see its
old-fashioned face gay with dainty vines and flowers.
"I declare if it isn't almost twelve o'clock," ejaculated he. "It's only
three minutes behind schedule to-day. Still we must get it down finer
than that. Besides, I'd rather it gained than lost time; losing is a
grievous fault. Now what selection shall we play? Choose quickly for
there isn't much leeway--"
"I'll have the dance."
"On with the dance!" McPhearson exclaimed gayly.
Opening the door at the front he moved the single hand until it pointed
to the air desired. And he was none too soon, for an instant later the
clock struck the hour and then, after a short pause, Christopher heard
the tinkle of bells, thin, clear, and sweet, beginning to play a quaint
snatch of melody. It was not at all the sort of dance music the boy had
expected. Instead it was a merry little tune so gay one could not but be
glad that noontide had come and that the sun rode high in the heavens.
"Jove, but that's jolly!" cried Christopher with delight. "I wish it
would play right over again. If I had a clock like that I should run to
listen to it every time it struck."
"That is what our men here did at first," laughed McPhearson. "They all
threw down their tools and rushed here like a pack of children."
"Couldn't anybody buy one of these clocks?"
"I'm afraid were you to try to, you would find it would cost a small
fortune," answered the Scotchman. "Once you could have secured such an
article at a very modest price; but values increase with time, and
to-day the work of Richard Parsons and those like him is at a premium.
Moreover, old bracket clocks are not often for sale. Those who own them
are aware of their value and will not part with them."
"Then I guess all I can do is to listen to this one," sighed
Christopher.
"That is all I can do myself," McPhearson declared, with a wan smile. "I
should consider I had a fortune could I own a treasure like this. But
at least if I cannot own it, I can have the fun of keeping it running
and there is some satisfaction in that."
"I should think there'd be a lot!" cried Christopher.