The Argosy, February. 1895
The Silver Clock
by Thomas F. Hart
ICK HARSHAW bad spent eighteen
listened to.
years of his life trying to learn to
He used to smile grimly sometimes
D attend to his own business.
when Dick came out more of a victim than When he was a baby he used to spoil
usual.
his mother's gowns by trying to feed her with
“Let him alone,” he would say to
his own bread and milk at unexpected Dick’s mother when she lamented. “He will moments, and when he was a boy at school, he get a lesson one of these days which will teach was always helping some other boy out of a him to let other people’s chestnuts burn, if scrape, and himself into one.
they can’t rake them out of the fire for It was the exasperation of his father's themselves. Lending a hand is one thing, but life, to see Dick putting out his hand lending a cat’s paw is another, and Master indiscriminately. Mr. Harshaw was a shrewd, Dick is going to find it out.”
hard headed gentleman, whose friendship was But Dick had a budding mustache
very much valued by his acquaintances, and before he did.
whose sparely given advice was always We hear very little about Nihilists and
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2
their sort nowadays, because people in One day in this restaurant a long haired England and America have grown tired of gentleman, with a mild expression and glasses them. They were written about so frequently, through which he peered at his pamphlet in a and talked about so much, that they grew to be dreamy fashion, sat down near Dick. He let an old story which nobody believed. It was his tea get quite cold, drank it in a gulp, and only the Nihilists who went on just as usual, went out.
plotting and being arrested in a way which The next day it was almost the same
delighted their hearts.
thing. He was such a sweet faced, innocent old People who become political man that Dick took a great interest in him.
insurgents could not be happy unless they One day the professor looked at him
were being persecuted. Excitement is their and gravely bowed, and after that they always daily food, and the thrill of escape from a spoke to each other.
danger, real or imaginary, contains for them This had been going on a month,
the charm of life. They are professional perhaps, when one afternoon the old professor martyrs, and belong to a class all their own.
felt about in the pockets of his loose coat and They undoubtedly do much good waistcoat for the usual coin for the waiter and sometimes, but they are one sided people who found nothing. The expression on his face was only see from their own point of view. Their one of perfect bewilderment.
cause is the only one in their eyes, and they The stolid Russian servant stood by,
justify themselves in sacrificing anything or his palm extended. It never seemed to enter anybody to their ends.
his mind, as it would that of an American When Mr. Harshaw took Dick to waiter, that so regular a customer might be Russia he tried to impress something of this trusted until tomorrow.
upon his mind.
This was Dick’s opportunity. He
“They are dangerous people to have to sprang forward with the few kopecks which do with,” Mr. Harshaw said. “They are not the professor needed, and in very bad Russian personally selfish, but they are selfish for their begged him to accept the loan.
cause, and unless you are one of them you The old man took them gratefully, then must let them alone. They will sacrifice their stopped and peered near sightedly into Dick’s own lives, and you cannot expect them to be face.
more squeamish about yours.”
“You are not a Russ,” he said.
Dick may be said to have laid this
“No; I am an American.”
advice away in lavender. He put it down in his
“Ah! Ah! That country of bad boys
mental note book that he was not to play with who wish to play without a ruler to guide their Nihilistic gunpowder, although he had work. Ah yes! I wish to hear of that country.
pictured to himself that he would make friends Yes! Yes!” And he sat down and poured out a among the students, and hear of their flood of questions about America to Dick.
adventures.
If there was one thing above another
He gave up the idea entirely and even which Dick loved to do, it was to talk about passed by the little restaurants where the America, particularly when he could talk in students from the university went for their English. He found that nearly all educated luncheon, and sat down at a table in another Russians could speak English.
much farther up the street, where only grave He told the professor all sorts of
old professors drank their tea, and read books things, and gave him what he considered an at the same time.
expert opinion upon our institutions and
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3
political parties. Some of them would have
“Tomorrow.”
made Dick’s father laugh, but he wasn’t Dick had grown so accustomed to his
telling them to his father, and Professor father’s journeyings that he gave no particular Makart (he told Dick his name was Makart) thought to this one, and after dinner that listened attentively.
evening he called into his room, “I am going
“I must go to my class now,” he said
out for a little while to see one of the finally. “But come this evening, or any professors.”
evening, and ask for the professor, at the
“All right,” his father said from the house of Paul Dabbovitch in the Street of the bottom of a box he was packing.
Good Shepherd. Let me hear more of your The Street of the Good Shepherd was
republicanism. It is new teaching to me. As narrow and illy lighted, and Dick thought to for me, I am lost in the Latin and the Greek.”
himself that the great university paid small When Dick went home that evening to
enough salaries certainly.
his rooms in the hotel he found a handsome The room where the professor lived
old Russian officer in uniform talking to his opened off a corridor, narrow and draughty, father.
which seemed to ran through the house, and Mr. Harshaw had gone to Russia with
his room was bare of furniture, except for a some electrical apparatus to be used on great porcelain stove, his narrow bed, and warships and in fortresses. The Russian piles of books. Indeed, the apartment looked government had about accepted his plans, and more like a second hand bookshop than Dick found when he had been introduced to anything else.
General Lobeleff that his father was preparing As Dick glanced over them he saw that to make a journey to the various fortresses they were mostly Greek and Latin classics.
through the empire.
There was nothing Nihilistic here. The old
“I cannot take you with me,” he said to professor appeared to be a garrulous person.
Dick, “because you would not be allowed to He told Dick all about his family in the go, and General Lobeleff has been good provinces, of how his daughter was governess enough to ask you to be his guest while I am to a gentleman’s daughter, and then he asked away.”
him about his own home in America.
“I am afraid you will find it rather
Dick told all about himself, winding up dull,” the general said. “There are only myself with
the information that he was to go to and my little girl and her governesses in the General Lobeleff’s for a visit.
house, but it will be much pleasanter than a
“Lobeleff is a great man in Russia,
hotel.”
very near the Czar,” Professor Makart said
“I am very glad to accept the invitation solemnly. “He does much to keep discipline for him,” Mr.” Harshaw said. “If it were not and to keep down the insurgents. He is a great for that I should send him over to Germany. I man. Will he be in the house while you are know he will get into no mischief if he has there?”
your house for a home, my old friend,” and
“Yes.”
Mr. Harshaw, who had been in Russia a great
“Good! Good!” The professor’s eyes
many times, and who had served as war gleamed under his white brows. “He can teach correspondent with the Russian army through you much about this country. Perhaps he can the Russo-Turkish war, grasped the general’s soon teach you that Russia is better ruled than hand.
America.”
“Then it is settled that he will come?”
“He will have to be a magician if he
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4
does that. There is no government like a and striplings had no business with late government by the people.”
dinners and state balls, in Mr. Harshaw’s Professor Makart looked at Dick for a opinion.
moment with a keener glance than he had let So, much of Dick’s time, when he was
come into his gentle eyes before.
not studying, was spent with his new friend,
“Would you like to see that son of a
the professor.
government in Russia?”
Oddly enough, a great many other
“Why,
certainly.”
young men gathered there. The professor’s
“Then why do you not find out the
daughter came home after a while, and they people who believe as you do, and help them?
made it a delightful home for Dick.
I am only asking out of curiosity—merely to They were much interested in his
learn your habit of thought,” the professor father's discoveries, and one night Dick took added hastily, as he saw a look of surprise in the model of the apparatus in a bag and started Dick’s eyes. “I imagined perhaps you would to the professor’s house with it.
want to help the little body of Russians It had stood on the general’s library struggling toward liberty, as Lafayette went table, securely locked in the box, but Dick had from France to help the Americans. I a key. He had been in the habit of showing it, wondered how far you Americans carried your and thought nothing of carrying it off now.
principles.”
Walking briskly down the Street of the
“Lafayette helped to fight in the open Good Shepherd, he suddenly felt a pair of field, not to murder and assassinate,” Dick arms clasp him in a vise-like grip, and a said contemptuously. “There’s a difference.”
moment later there was a darkness bespangled
“Your teachers have been noble ones,”
with stars, and he found himself sprawling on Professor Makart replied. “Let us talk of other the ground minus his bag.
things.”
He started up with a cry of “Stop
Dick thought, as he went back to the
thief!” but there was not a police officer to be hotel, that he had never spent a more found, although he ran for blocks in search of delightful evening. The professor did not seem one. Then he went on to the professor’s and like an old man, but a young one. Dick had told him his story.
talked while thought he was listening, and had It was received in dead silence, but
turned his young mind inside out, promising now and then there were furtive glances cast to come again within a few days, and bring at each other, and slight shaking of heads.
one of the models of his father’s electrical
“I hate to tell the general, but I will,”
apparatus for the innocent old professor of said Dick. “He can probably recover the bag.”
Greek and Latin to see.
Miss Makart followed him to the door,
“You will have to explain it to me. I and out into the draughty corridor.
know nothing of these new wonder toys,” he
“I must tell you a secret,” she said.
said meekly.
“You must not speak of us to the general. He Altogether Dick went away highly is my father’s only brother.”
delighted with himself.
Dick looked at her in amazement.
He found his new life at the general’s
“It is true. They were separated by my exceedingly novel; but, as the general bad father’s marrying the governess, and being said, a little quiet. There was much gaiety in disinherited. But my father still loves him. Ah!
Petersburg, and the general could have taken If I could only bring them together!” clasping him anywhere, but Dick was hardly eighteen, her hands.
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5
“Can I help?” Dick asked.
Listen. You can hear it tick.”
“If you only would!”
And Dick could. It ticked rather more
“I will!”
heavily, he thought, than when he had heard it
“And keep silent until the proper before, notwithstanding the muffling bag.
moment?”
“Be careful not to drop it,” was the last
“I hope I can do that.”
injunction.
“Then I have a plan. Tomorrow is my
Dick took the bag carefully and
father’s birthday. I think the attempt should be walked home and up stairs. The general’s made then.”
suite of rooms were very near his own. so he
“I think that would be a good time,”
slipped in and put the bag under the general’s Dick said.
bed hangings.
“Ah, it is pitiful, to see my dear old He felt a little like a sneak, creeping in father working so hard for a miserable pittance like this, although his object was so good.
while his brother lives in luxury! My father Some bit of his father’s advice about meddling was the eldest son, who was disinherited for in other people’s affairs came to his mind, but my uncle Alexis. And father still loves him, it was too late now. Already he heard the and stands at his gates to see him pass.”
general coming.
There were tears in her eyes.
After two o’clock Dick was awakened
“I think that on my father’s birthday,”
by a telegraphic message. It came from across she went on, “he will send my uncle a gift.
the frontier in Germany, and summoned Dick You shall take it and place it where his eye at once to his father, who was ill. With a heart will see it when he awakes in the morning.
like lead he threw some things into a bag and Or—no! I have it! Ah! I have it! The old started.
clock!”
The general had ordered out the sleigh She went into the room and came back
for him, and said good by in a fatherly with a quaint old silver clock. She pressed a fashion, asking if he should go to the train point and a silvery chime broke out, ringing a with him.
melody.
“No, no,” Dick responded.
“This is a clock that my uncle gave to Even in his grief he remembered the
my father when he became of age, and it stood chime that was to sound a reconciliation.
on a shelf in their study. I will set this so that He hurried into the station, and found the chime will ring at a certain hour; then I that he must wait half an hour for his train.
will give it to you in a bag. You will place it Near by there was a little stand where tea and out of sight in my uncle Alexis�
� room. He will cheese and caviare were sold, and Dick awaken in the morning and hear the chime. It walked in for a cup of tea.
will remind him of his boyhood. He will seek He had just given his order, when he
for it, and surely he will be touched.”
felt a hand touch him on the shoulder. He She went away again and came back
turned. It was a police officer, and three others with a little black bag.
stood behind him.
“It is here. You will surely place it To any one who has ever lived in
under my uncle’s bed?”
Russia there must always come some sort of a
“Surely!” Dick said.
chill at the touch of a police officer. They are
“Be very careful of it. Do not open it-the escorts to so many disagreeable places.
Let him find it. It is all set to waken him by
“What is it?” Dick asked.
the chime at seven o’clock tomorrow morning.
“You must come with me,” the first
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6
officer said. “You are my prisoner.”
He looked up at the timepiece over the
“I cannot, and I will not. My father is head of the chief. It was four minutes to seven.
ill in Germany, and I must go to him.”
Nothing could save the general now.
“Not
tonight.”
Dick saw the whole miserable plot. What a
“What am I arrested for?”
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