SKETCHES NEW AND OLD
by Mark Twain
Part 1.
CONTENTS:
| MY WATCH POLITICAL ECONOMY THE JUMPING FROG JOURNALISM IN TENNESSEE THE STORY OF THE BAD LITTLE BOY THE STORY OF THE GOOD LITTLE BOY A COUPLE OF POEMS BY TWAIN AND MOORE NIAGARA |
SKETCHES NEW AND OLD
Part 1.
AN INSTRUCTIVE LITTLE TALE—[Written about 1870.]
My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without losing or gaining,and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping. I had cometo believe it infallible in its judgments about the time of day, and toconsider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable. But at last, onenight, I let it run down. I grieved about it as if it were a recognizedmessenger and forerunner of calamity. But by and by I cheered up, setthe watch by guess, and commanded my bodings and superstitions to depart.Next day I stepped into the chief jeweler's to set it by the exact time,and the head of the establishment took it out of my hand and proceeded toset it for me. Then he said, "She is four minutes slow-regulator wantspushing up." I tried to stop him—tried to make him understand that thewatch kept perfect time. But no; all this human cabbage could see wasthat the watch was four minutes slow, and the regulator must be pushed upa little; and so, while I danced around him in anguish, and implored himto let the watch alone, he calmly and cruelly did the shameful deed. Mywatch began to gain. It gained faster and faster day by day. Within theweek it sickened to a raging fever, and its pulse went up to a hundredand fifty in the shade. At the end of two months it had left all thetimepieces of the town far in the rear, and was a fraction over thirteendays ahead of the almanac. It was away into November enjoying the snow,while the October leaves were still turning. It hurried up house rent,bills payable, and such things, in such a