Clocks

Clocks, by Jerome K. Jerome

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Title: Clocks
Author: Jerome K. Jerome
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2002] [Most recently updated: November 28, 2002]
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CLOCKS.
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.
It is in this spirit of child-like faith in its integrity that, one morning,
you gather your family around you in the passage, kiss your children,
and afterward wipe your jammy mouth, poke your finger in the baby's
eye, promise not to forget to order the coals, wave at last fond adieu
with the umbrella, and depart for the railway-station.
I never have been quite able to decide, myself, which is the more
irritating to run two miles at the top of your speed, and then to find,
when you reach the station, that you are three-quarters of an hour too
early; or to stroll along leisurely the whole way, and dawdle about
outside the booking-office, talking to some local idiot, and then to
swagger carelessly on to the platform, just in time to see the train go
out!
As for the other class of clocks--the common or always-wrong
clocks--they are harmless enough. You wind them up at the proper
intervals, and once or twice a week you put them right and "regulate"
them, as you call it (and you might just as well try to "regulate" a
London tom-cat). But you