Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/69

Rh As the Timekeeper had been regulated, and its correctness ascertained, by the Inventor, before it was sent to Richmond, the question, of equal interest and difficulty, was how to account for so strange and ruinous an error, which continued unabated on the fourth day. At this time, William Harrison, who doubtless had conferred on the affair with his Father, suggested that the cause must be attraction. No sooner was the idea started, but his Majesty, on a sudden recollection, exclaimed he had found it out; and, in his ardour, instead of directing either of the persons before him to do that office, he hastened himself to open the door of a closet in the apartment, where appeared three most powerful combinations of loadstones, which it was unaccountably forgotten had been deposited there; and the effect of which left so unlocked for a disappointment no longer a mystery ;—but it