Willy Woolly sniffed at one protruding foot and growled. Dead or alive, this was not Willy Woolly's kind of man. "Now, now, Willy Woolly!" reproved his master. "Who are we that we should judge him?" "But I don't _like_ him," declared Willy Woolly in unequivocal dog language. "I think from his face that he has suffered much," said the gentle collector, wise in human pain. "Me; I suppose I don't suffer!" pointed out the landlord vehemently. "Fourteen dollars out. Two months' rent. A bum clock." He kicked the shabby case which whizzed and birred and struck five. The voice of its bell, measured and mellow and pure, was unquestionably D in alt. "My dear sir," said Stepfather Time urbanely, but quivering underneath his calm manner with the hot eagerness of the chase, "I will buy your clock." A gust of rough laughter passed through the crowd. The injurious word "nut" floated in the air, and was followed by "Verrichter." The landlord took thought and hope. "It is a very fine clock," he declared. "It is a bum clock," Stepfather Time reminded him mildly. "Stepnadel, the auctioneer, would pay me much money for it." "I will pay you much money for it." "How much?" "Seven dollars. That is one month's rent that he owed." "Two months' rent I must have." "One," said Stepfather Time firmly. "Two," said the landlord insistently. "Urff! Grr--rr--rr--rrff!" said Willy Woolly in emphatic dissuasion. Stepfather Time was scandalized. Expert opinion was quite outside of Willy Woolly's province. Only once in the course of their years together had he interfered in a purchase. Justice compelled Stepfather Time to recall that the subject of Willy's protests on that occasion had subsequently turned out to be far less antique than the worm holes in