Glancing
upward at the clock on the mantelpiece (for I felt too drowsy to take
out my watch), I had the pleasure to find that I had still twenty-five
minutes to spare. It was half-past five; I could easily walk to the
insurance office in five minutes; and my usual siestas had never been
known to exceed five-and-twenty. I felt sufficiently safe, therefore,
and composed myself to my slumbers forthwith.
Having completed them to my satisfaction, I again looked toward the
timepiece, and was half inclined to believe in the possibility of odd
accidents when I found that, instead of my ordinary fifteen or twenty
minutes, I had been dozing only three; for it still wanted
seven-and-twenty of the appointed hour. I betook myself again to my
nap, and at length a second time awoke, when, to my utter amazement,
it still wanted twenty-seven minutes of six. I jumped up to examine
the clock, and found that it had ceased running. My watch informed me
that it was half-past seven; and, of course, having slept two hours, I
was too late for my appointment. "It will make no difference," I said:
"I can call at the office in the morning and apologize; in the
meantime what can be the matter with the clock?" Upon examining it I
discovered that one of the raisin stems which I had been filiping
about the room during the discourse of the Angel of the Odd had flown
through the fractured crystal, and lodging, singularly enough, in the
keyhole, with an end projecting outward, had thus arrested the
revolution of the minute hand.
Pages:
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77