"Indeed, boy, we'll have many a blessed hour," said the tinker.
"Come to me shop; we'll talk, meditate, explore, an' I'll see what
o'clock it is in thy country."

They were now in the village, and, halfway down its main
thoroughfare, went up a street of gloom and narrowness between
dingy workshops. At one of them, shaky, and gray with the stain of
years, they halted. The two lower windows in front were dim with
dirt and cobwebs. A board above them was the rude sign of Sam
Bassett, carpenter. On the side of the old shop was a flight of
sagging, rickety stairs. At the height of a man's head an old
brass dial was nailed to the gray boards. Roughly lettered in
lampblack beneath it were the words, "Clocks Mended." They climbed
the shaky stairs to a landing, supported by long braces, and
whereon was a broad door, with latch and keyhole in its weathered
timber.

"All bow at this door," said the old tinker, as he put his long
iron key in the lock. "It's respect for their own heads, not for
mine," he continued, his hand on the eaves that overhung below the
level of the door-top.

They entered a loft, open to the peak and shingles, with a window
in each end. Clocks, dials, pendulums, and tiny cog-wheels of wood
and brass were on a long bench by the street window. Thereon,
also, were a vice and tools. The room was cleanly, with a crude
homelikeness about it. Chromos and illustrated papers had been
pasted on the rough, board walls.