.. it would be nine to-morrow morning in no time. See?'
'I see that,' said the patrol. 'I see that. But what I don't see--'
'Never mind what you don't see,' Mr. Jack Galpin murmured. 'Bring me my
bag out of there. I may tell you,' he went on to Simon, 'that I thought
of this scheme months ago, just as a pleasant sort of a fancy, but quite
practical. It's a queer world, isn't it?'
'Here's your bag,' said the patrol.
'Now you two can just go into the waiting-room, and wait till I call
you. Understand? And tell all these wild beasts round here to hold their
tongues and sit tight. I haven't got to be disturbed in a job like
this.... And it's a hundred pounds if I do it, mister, no more and no
less, eh?'
Within exactly twenty-five minutes Mr. Galpin entered the waiting-room.
'See that?' he said, holding up a pendulum. 'That's _it_. You can come
and look now. But I don't invite the public to see my own private
melting process. Not me!'
He had burnt two holes through the half-inch plate of Bessemer steel in
which the clock was enclosed, and by means of two pairs of tweezers
(which must certainly have been imitated from the armoury of a dentist)
he had detached the pendulum without stopping the clock. The hands of
the clock could be plainly seen to move, and its ticking was furiously
rapid.
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