Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/552

548 have not left myself space for it in the present paper; but I will mention, before I forget it again, the resistance to serving the office of high-sheriff which was persistently and successfully offered for many years by an eccentric old squire. He cared little for the honour and glory of the shrievalty, and objected most earnestly to the trouble and expense, for he would have had to buy a state carriage, set up a troop of retainers, and I know not what besides. On the other hand, there was a fine of, as I think, £500 for not serving the office, if once nominated to it. The problem therefore, for the old character, was to avoid serving the office, and avoid paying the fine. This he solved very effectually by giving notice to the officers who named the magnates from whom the sheriff would be selected, that if made sheriff he would serve. "But as sure as you live," he added, "I'll go with a wain and oxen to meet the judges, and my people shall come in smock-frocks, with forks in their hands." Everybody was convinced that he would do as he threatened; they did not dare to commit the honour of the county to such hands; and he went down to the grave a very old man, without having been ever troubled to execute the office of chief magistrate.

And now, by a glance at the clock, I learn that I must give over my musings, and betake myself elsewhere. By the way, is it now a decreed method that we are to change the small hours of our afternoons into teens and twenties? If so, who is to bring about the alteration, and for whose benefit is it to be done? I quite fail to perceive what gain there can be in marking the dial with XVI.'s and XXIV.'s, or in talking of twenty-one o'clock, to compensate for the wrench which our habits will suffer in renaming the afternoon and evening hours. We shall be spared the trouble of writing A.M. and P.M. when we specify the time of day, and we shall avoid the confusion which might possibly arise from omission to insert these abbreviations; in return, we shall have a cumbersome method of notation. Surely the old style has not been found so inconvenient that a new one is imperatively called for! For my part, I have run through a large number of years without ever coming to thirteen o'clock, and I could be well content to live out my span without being ever taught by proud science to stray to that numerator of time. We can see how the world wags quite as well with small numbers as with mouth-filling ones, and the tale which hangs thereby will be as impressive in units as in dozens. When it was necessary to alter the reckoning of years, those who understood the matter submitted to inconvenience with a good grace, and kept Epiphany on what would have been Christmas-day, because there had been really an error in the old style. But there is no error in reckoning the twelve hours twice in the astronomical day; and all I have to say is, that – well, I can't say all that is in my heart just now, for if I do I shall inevitably miss my train.