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What might happen after nine, or, rather, on the stroke of nine, was no worry of his, though it might be and probably would be of the landlord's, provided that heartless extortioner survived it. Having completed his operations, Mr. Lukisch sat down in a rickety chair and gazed at the clock, face to face, with contemplative satisfaction.
The relic of the late unlamented Lukisch was temporarily installed in a high chair before the open window giving on the areaway of Number 37. There it briefly beamed upon the busy life of Our Square with its bland and hypocritical face, and there, thrice and no more, it sounded the passing of the hours with its sweet and false voice, biding the stroke of nine.
Presently he passed on and Mr. Lukisch resumed his tinkering with the clock's insides. He was very delicate and careful about it, for these were the final touches, preparatory to his leaving the timepiece as a memento when he should quietly depart that evening, shortly before nine.
Stepfather Time would have been interested in the contrast between those two physiognomies. The clock's face, benign and bland, would have deceived him. But, innocent though he was in the ways of evil, the man's face might have warned him. Something within the clock's mechanism clicked and checked and went on again. The sound, quite unexpected, gave Mr. Lukisch a bad start.
All that he could learn about the basement dweller was that his name was Lukisch and he owed for his rent. Mr. Lukisch had nothing special against the queer old party who made sheep's eyes at his clock every day. He hated him quite impartially, as he hated everybody. Mr. Lukisch had a bad heart in more senses than one, and a grudge against the world which he blamed for the badness of his heart.
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