My Watch

(After M. Twain “My Watch”)

My beautiful watch kept perfect time. But one night I forgot to wind it up and went to a watchmaker as I wanted my watch to be set by the exact time.

The watchmaker said, “It is four minutes slow — the regulator should be pushed up.” I tried to stop him, tried to make him understand that my watch kept perfect time, but he would not listen to me and pushed the regulator. My watch began to gain, it gained faster and faster day by day. At the end of two months it had left all the clocks and watches of the town far behind.

I had to take it to another watchmaker to be regulated. I expected him to regulate the watch immediately, but he asked me to come in a week’s time. After that my watch began to slow down and I began to be late for trains, for my business appointments, began to miss my dinner.

I went to a watchmaker again. While I waited for him to repair my watch, he took the watch to pieces and said he could finish repairing only in three days. After that the watch went for half a day and then stopped.

I was taking this instrument from one watchmaker to another. And as a result the cleverest man in the world could not tell the time by my watch. The thing was getting serious. The watch had cost two hundred dollars originally and I seemed to have paid out two thousand for repairs. I decided to finish repairing the watch and bought another one.