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Updated: May 17, 2025
"Where's the tick-tock?" he asked, absent-mindedly. "The clock," cried old "Kiowa" loudly. "The eight-day clock used to stand there. Why " He turned to Ranse, but Ranse was not there. Already a hundred yards away, Vaminos, the good flea-bitten dun, was bearing him eastward like a racer through dust and chaparral towards the Rancho de los Olmos.
Smiling she guides them toward the commandant and says: "Here they are, sir. How do you like them?" That terrific personage has been suddenly transformed from haircloth into silk. He beams, and pulling out his fat gold watch, coos like a hoarse dove: "Look here, kinderen, come and hear the bells in my tick-tock!"
In the inner offices of the city the new heroes sit through the day, watchmakers themselves, winding and unwinding the immemorial crowds with new devices. But in the evening they too return to their ornamental boxes, and under Pompeian lamps, amid Renaissance tapestries, open newspapers. Alley box and manor, the tick-tock of the city has them all.
He was superstitious anyway. He believed that he could not be drowned himself, for instance, because he had been born with a caul over his face. Frenchy went into the room, presumably to listen for the "tick-tock" sound; but actually to find his knife. He came out with the latter in his pocket; but he also showed a rather pale face and he had not much to say until Seven Knott went away.
But it was evident that he had made up his mind to counteract the influence of the strange sound upon the men by denying its existence. This, of course, did no good at all. The men, or, at least, some of them, could hear the "tick-tock! tick-tock! tick-tock!" for themselves. Those who wandered into the room where the lumber was stowed were strongly impressed by the unexplained sounds.
Where's your clock around here, anyways, so a fellow knows where he's at?" "There it is under the pillow next to you, Max. I smothered it because it gets on my nerves all day. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, right into my head like it was saying all the time: 'Oh-Mae! Oh-Mae! Oh-Mae! till I nearly go crazy, Max. Tick-tock God! it it just gets me!"
I'll take the matter up with Captain Trevor if I hear anything more about it." But it was impossible to stop the circulation of such a story on shipboard. Rumor flies from deck to deck on wings. A hint of the strange noise below decks made others besides Seven Knott investigate. Many declared they heard the "tick-tock" sound.
At the far end of the hall was a great friendly grandfather's clock with a broad round face. "Tick-tock, tick-tock," said the clock in a deep mellow voice. Hortense thought he said, "Welcome, welcome," and was sure he winked at her. "I must make him talk to me," thought Hortense. "He seems a very wise old clock. How many interesting things he must know."
A few things for remembrance were to be sent after them by goods-train: a few books, portraits, the old grandfather's clock, whose tick-tock seemed to them to be the beating of their hearts. The air was keen. No one was stirring in the town: the shutters were closed and the streets empty. They said nothing: only the old servant spoke.
Paved streets and window-pitted walls beat out a monotone. Lust and dream turn sterile eyes to the night. The great multiple tick-tock of the city waits another hour to pass. Wait, it reads a newspaper. On the west side of the city a man named Joseph Pryzalski has murdered a woman he loved, beating her head in with an ax, and subsequently cut his own throat with a razor.
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