The Press., 1893-03-02
TT WAS WORSE THAN AN INTERNAL
 MACHINE IN EFFECT.

A Devoted Brother Has an Interesting
 and Exasperating Experience with a
 Queer Going Timepiece-What Was the
 Matter with the Clock.
 This is story about d clock which made great deal of trouble for two people and gave the same two people very poor opinions of each other. The brother says that no woman in the world save his sister could have had such amazing ignorance about clocks in gen. eral, and this one in particular, while his sister declares that only her brother, of all men on earth, would have allowed a little bit of clock to make fool of him before carload of strangers.
 The trouble with the clock was that it wouldn't keep time. There was no reason in the world why it wouldn't; it just wouldn't, and that was all there was to it. This was painful to the young woman for several reasons. It is only necessary to mention one; the timepiece had been given to her by her betrothed. He thought it was little gem of clock, and that it would please her. She agreed with him as to the beauty of the delicate little affair, and was pleased for time. Then she began to get worried; then she got nervous, and lastly alarmed. This was all of course because the thing would not go, and, because she feared he might think she had broken it, or, worse still, as she herself confessed between time, that she hadn't sense enough to make,a clock go, while her irreverent and impertinent brother suggested sweetly that he was more likely to think that it was her .sface which had stopped clock
 The family were in the country when the clock was received, and when the time drew near for the arrival of the betrothed clock giver affairs began to be desperate The young woman declared that that cl1ck had to go. The clock simply wouldn't. She would wind it up-it would always wind without the slightest resistance-but it would not 20. She shook it, she turned it upside l down, she coaxed it, she laid it on its face and then on its back, and the hands were still froze to the face of the clock.
 Albert" she said to her brother, syou must take this clock over to town and get it repaired. It must be repaired; it must go."
 Now town was ten miles away, and Albert did not see why any one should mako so much fuss over clock, and such a little clock, too, as that was. But when arguments and pleadings could not move him he yielded to tears, and, chucking the timepiece under his arm, he boarded the train and started for town. In the car he placed the clock on the seat beside him and rested his hand on it. Then more trouble began. That clock began to strike. It went into the striking business in a calm, determined way.
 It struck right along, up grade and down grade, around curves and on straight tracks. The brother felt a fainting around his heart. The people in the car who had first been amused began to be annoyed. The young mans face got red; it got warm; his hair be- came bathed with dampness, but he clung' to the clock like Trojan. He had an idea that he might be able to hide it or smother it or close it, he didn't know which, and so he kept his hand tightly pressed on it.
 And all the time that internal ma- chine just "sawed wood" It had struck gait which it liked, and it kept it ul
 without a break. It showed no signs of
 getting tired, or of running down. It
 was striking along at 2:20 gait when
 the train reached the town. It con.
 tinued to strike when the brother made
 his escape from the car. It went on
 striking up the street until the brother wanted to throw it over 8 fence and then commit suicide. No burglar alarm was ever more persevering than that clock. No changing fire engine ever , made more noise and caused more ex , citement. The clock was striking away industriously and cheerfully when the brother ran into jewellers shop and threw the thing down on a counter.
 "For heavens sake stop itI' he cried But it had stopped. There it lay or r the counter as dumb as an oyster and a. silent as tomb.
 | .Well, I'll be hanged, 'said the broth CT breathlessly. What's the matter with it anyway he asked, looking a it as if it were dynamite cartridge. The jeweler picked it up.
 l. "Look outr' cried the brother. ''Tha
 thing will start mp again if you toucl it."
 f But it didn't. It never made a sound only in minute came a gentle ant rhythmic ticking.
 , "There's nothing the trouble with it.
 said the jeweler. setting the hands ant then. examining the little internal ma chine. ''You see," he added with 8 sym 5 pathetic smile, "this is repeating clock 5 You can make it restrike the last hou t by touching this spring. You have beer winding up the repeating sounder, bu , not the clock. And you must have helt
 your hand on the spring when you kep lit striking. It's all right now. All yo, 5 want to do is to wind the clock more ant the repeater less"
 s.Ohv' said the brother with gasp i, and that was all.
 Now the brother says that any woman who doesn't know enough to wind r clock doesn't know enough to live. An, } the sister says-well, every brothe r knows what sisters can say. New Yorl Tribune