Clocks

Name: Clocks
Author: Jerome K. Jerome

by Jerome K. Jerome

Pages: about 14
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 15 min at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 8 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

2. Hyphens have been left in the text only where it was the clear intention of the author. For example, throughout the text, "tonight" and "tomorrow" appear as "to-night" and "to-morrow". This is intentional, and is not simply a legacy of words having been broken across lines in the printed text.
3. The pound (currency) symbol has been replaced by the word "pounds".
There are two kinds of clocks. There is the clock that is always wrong, and that knows it is wrong, and glories in it; and there is the clock that is always right--except when you rely upon it, and then it is more wrong than you would think a clock could be in a civilized country.
I remember a clock of this latter type, that we had in the house when I was a boy, routing us all up at three o'clock one winter's morning. We had finished breakfast at ten minutes to four, and I got to school a little after five, and sat down on the step outside and cried, because I thought the world had come to an end; everything was so death-like!
The man who can live in the same house with one of these clocks, and not endanger his chance of heaven about once a month by standing up and telling it what he thinks of it, is either a dangerous rival to that old established firm, Job, or else he does not know enough bad language to make it worth his while to start saying anything at all.
The great dream of its life is to lure you on into trying to catch a train by it. For weeks and weeks it will keep the most perfect time. If there were any difference in time between that clock and the sun, you would be convinced it was the sun, not the clock, that wanted seeing to.

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Clocks

From the opening

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