The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch

The Adventures of a
Three-Guinea Watch, by

Talbot Baines Reed This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no
cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give
it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch
Author: Talbot Baines Reed
Release Date: April 11, 2007 [EBook #21035]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
THREE-GUINEA WATCH ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch
By Talbot Baines Reed
_________________________________________________________
______________This is really a most unusual book. Told, we must
imagine, by the watch, we are led through the owner's days at a boys'

boarding school, to being stolen, pawned, auctioned, taken to quite
another small town, given to a brilliant local boy when he left for
Cambridge, lost in a field, found, and through further adventures being
taken to India to fight in a battle near Lucknow, finally making its way
into the pocket of its original owner, whose life was saved by the watch
having deflected a bullet.
It's well-told, too, and not too long, at under ten hours.
The copy we worked from was very browned, and it was not too easy to
do the transcription, but we have done our best: if you find anything
obviously wrong, don't hesitate to tell us about it. NH.
_________________________________________________________
_____________THE ADVENTURES OF A THREE-GUINEA WATCH
BY TALBOT BAINES REED
CHAPTER ONE.
MY INFANCY AND EDUCATION--HOW I WAS SOLD AND
WHO BOUGHT ME.
"Then you can guarantee it to be a good one to go?"
"You couldn't have a better, sir."
"And it will stand a little roughish wear, you think?"
"I'm sure of it, sir; it's an uncommon strong watch."
"Then I'll take it."
These few sentences determined my destiny, and from that moment my
career may be said to have begun.
I am old, and run down, and good for nothing now; but many a time do
I find my thoughts wandering back to this far-off day; and
remembering all that has befallen me since that eventful moment, I

humbly hope my life has not been one to disgrace the good character
with which I went out into the world.
I was young at the time, very young--scarcely a month old. Watches
however, as every one knows, are a good deal more precocious in their
infancy than human beings. They generally settle down to business as
soon as they are born, without having to spend much of their time
either in the nursery or the schoolroom.
Indeed, after my face and hands had once been well cleaned, and a
brand- new shiny coat had been put on my back, it was years before I
found myself again called upon to submit to that operation which is
such a terror to all mortal children.
As to my education, it lasted just a week; and although I am bound to
say, while it lasted, it was both carefully and skilfully managed, I did
not at all fancy the discipline I was subjected to in the process. I used to
be handed over to a creature who took me up and examined me (as if he
were a policeman and a magistrate combined), and according as I
answered his questions he exclaimed, "You're going too fast," or
"You're going too slow," and with that he set himself to "regulate" me,
as he called it. I was ordered to turn round, take off my coat, and
submit my poor shoulders to his instrument of correction. But why
need I describe this experience to boys? They know what "regulating"
means as well as I do!
Well in due time I profited by the instructions received, and one day
my tutor, after the usual examination, grumpily told me, "You're right
at last; you can go." And I did go, and I've been going ever since.
The troubles of my infancy however were not all over. I discovered at a
very early age that the one thing a watch is never allowed to do is to go
to sleep. They'd as soon think of leaving an infant to starve as of letting
a watch go to sleep.
But to my story. Ever since I had left school--or, in other words, gone
through my due course of regulation--I had remained shut up under a
glass-case, lying comfortably upon a bed of purple velvet, and

decorated with a little white label bearing the mysterious inscription,
"Only Three Guineas." From this stately repose I was only once a day
disturbed in order to be kept from sleeping, and had all the rest of my
time to look about me and observe what went on