Page:The Winning Touchdown.djvu/182

168 you think it's got the measles or the pip, that you have to hark to its breathing apparatus that way?"

"There's something wrong with it," declared Phil, with a dubious shake of his head. "It doesn't tick as it used to. Here, Sid, you listen to it."

Thus appealed to, Sid put the timepiece to his ear.

"Don't you remember," went on Phil, "how it used to sort of have a double tick, like an automobile with carbon in the cylinders? Sometimes it would act as if it was going to stop, and you'd think it had heart failure. Then it would get on the move again. It doesn't do that now. It ticks as regular as a chronometer."

"You're right," agreed Sid. "Here, Tom, have a hearken."

After a few minutes' test, Tom was also forced to conclude that there was something strange about the clock. Yet it was undeniably theirs.

"And it's exactly right, too," went on Phil, comparing it with his new watch, a present from his mother. "It's right to the half minute, and that's something that never happened before since the time when the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. Whoever had it, and brought it back, took the trouble to set it right."

Tom was now carefully looking the clock over.