The watch had something to say, and the clock was listening.
“Here is my trouble,” the watch began. “My master wastes his mornings in a fog of fussing and forgetting. Then, when he finally notices the time, he panics — and somehow expects me to give him back all the minutes he threw away. He rushes about madly, trying to catch up with himself, and I rush along with him. But it’s no use: lost time doesn’t come back, not for watches, not for anyone.
“The worst of it came when he decided to set me ahead — ten minutes fast, so he’d always seem early. But the moment anyone checked the hour, they’d look at me and say, ‘Your watch is fast.’ And they were right. We watches have to agree with each other, you see. We can’t each tell a different story and call it the truth.
“So I go back to racing after his wasted moments, feeling anxious and quite useless. And the only cure I can see — for him, not for me — is this: he should stop expecting miracles from a watch, and start everything on time.”
