Chapter 14

HOW RUBIES, SAPPHIRES, AND GARNETS HELPED TO TELL TIME

"Well, Christopher, what do you think of the jewelry business?" his father inquired one day after he had been for several months a regular visitor at the store.

Christopher smiled.

"I like parts of it very much," replied he. "The clocks and watches are all right. There's sense in those. I shouldn't mind a bit becoming a repairer if I could be as good a one as Mr. McPhearson. But the rings, bracelets and all those ruby-emerald-diamond fol-de-rols make me sick."

"And yet you could have no fine watches without jewels--remember that."

Abashed, the lad colored.

"Oh, I know the best watches have their works dolled up with precious stones."

"Scarcely _dolled up_, son," Mr. Burton answered.

"I thought that was what they were put in for."

"Just for ornament?"

"Sure! To make the watches handsomer than those carried by common folks--dressier and more expensive."

"You actually entertained that notion?" came quizzically from the head of the firm.

"Yes, Dad."

Mr. Burton gazed at his offspring dumbfounded and reproachful, his eyes saying as plainly as any words could, "That I should live to hear a son of mine give voice to such gross ignorance!" Then when he had conquered his amazement sufficiently to speak he gasped:

"I'm afraid there are still facts that McPhearson will have to teach you before you can follow his trade."

"No doubt there are a few," returned Christopher audaciously.

"This matter of jeweled watches is one. How did it happen you never asked him why precious stones were set in the works of a watch?"

"I thought I knew why."

"He probably thought you did too; but apparently you don't. However, there is hope for you since you are willing to be honest and confess your ignorance. Indeed, I've no right to blame you. How should you know such a thing unless somebody took the trouble to tell you?" the lad's father amended. "Nevertheless, at first I could not but be surprised at the originality of your theory."

"Then the jewels are not for decoration?"

"Well, hardly!" responded Burton, Senior, with an amused shake of his head. "Way back about the year 1700 a Genevan watchmaker residing in London struggled to find some hard material in which to set watch pivots so they would not wear the works of the watch, and after much experimenting with different substances he hit upon the plan of drilling a hole in various kinds of gems and setting the pivots into those. Gems, as perhaps you are already aware, are among the hardest minerals we have. Therefore Facio, as the Swiss was called, proceeded to make a watch after this idea and in 1703 obtained a patent on it good for fourteen years. Then, two years later, when he found by experience how excellent and practical was his scheme, he petitioned that this grant be extended to cover a longer period.

"Now all workmen, alas, are jealous for their own prestige and the artisans belonging to the London Clockmakers' Company were no exception to this rule. All of them were ready enough to seize greedily upon the bright ideas of any craftsman following their line of trade and they resented it bitterly if not allowed to do so. Moreover, that it was Nicolas Facio, a Swiss, and not one of their own number who had stumbled upon this clever device was galling indeed. Therefore, I regret to say, they opposed his application for the extending of his patent on the ground that the jewel idea was not new. A member of their own guild, they insisted, had already constructed such a watch; and to prove the assertion they produced a timepiece with an amethyst gleaming from its works. Upon the presentation of this evidence the unlucky Facio's claim was immediately refused. Later on, however, it proved that the watch displayed by the zealous London gentlemen was not in the least similar to Facio's conception. The jewel had only been stuck on (in accordance with your own plan) and was not set into the works at all. Whether the fraud resulted from ignorance or was a deliberate attempt to deceive no one could say. Certainly in 1703 the London clockmakers had nothing with which to block Facio's application; if, therefore, in 1705 they had a jeweled watch, it looks much as if they must have deliberately prepared it as an argument against the Genevan's request being granted. What the facts were we shall probably never know; but at least poor Facio lost the glory due him for his invention. Since that time practically all watches have certain of their moving parts set in jewels to prevent wear to the bearings and make them run smoother. The more expensive watches contain many of these stones. It requires less power, you see, to drive a well-jeweled watch because of its velvet-like action. But at the same time all this studding of gems greatly increases the cost of making a good watch."

"What a duffer I was to think the jewels were just to make the thing look pretty!" burst out Christopher, when his father had finished.

"Don't come down on yourself too hard, son," Mr. Burton interposed kindly. "We all have to learn. But you can now understand, can't you, that the diamonds, rubies, and precious stones at which you jeered have their practical uses? A pivot or bearing revolving in a hole drilled in a garnet or other gem creates almost no friction and needs therefore only very little oil."

"I can understand it now--yes, sir," returned Christopher meekly.

"Of course in our day the price of jewels has gone up a great deal. There was a time when a full-jeweled watch did not begin to cost what it does now. However, we are free of certain other expenses the old watchmakers encountered," went on Mr. Burton. "For example, about the year 1800, when England was anxious to raise money for the treasury, William Pitt proposed that a tax be placed on the wearing of watches."

"That's worse than having to pay a tax on theater tickets--a good sight!" jested Christopher.

"It certainly meant the taxation of a very useful commodity; we should term it an indispensable one. At that period of history, though, watches and clocks were far less cheap and common and therefore Mr. Pitt may have classed them as luxuries and rated them as our government does perfumery. However that may be, his suggestion of levying two shillings sixpence on every silver watch and ten shillings on every gold one, with the additional tax of five shillings on every clock, went through."

"I don't see why the English people stood for it," said the boy, his hereditary resentment against unjust taxation aroused.

"They were pretty thoroughly vexed, I assure you," was the reply. "It meant, you see, very disastrous results for the horologists. In fact, even outside the trade feeling ran high. Not only were numberless excellent workmen thrown out of their jobs and the watchmaking industry given a general setback, but the public, just coming to appreciate the value of a good timepiece, was vastly inconvenienced. Many persons revolted and ceased to carry watches rather than pay the tax. Some did this as a protest; others because they could not afford the additional expenditure. In the meantime an article known as the Act of Parliament clock was made and put up in the taverns, inns, and coffee houses to aid customers and serve as an additional declaration against the Pitt tax. So general was public disapproval and so bitter the storm created that a year after the law had passed it had to be repealed."

"That's the stuff! It ought to have been," cried young America fervently.

"Yes, I agree with you. It certainly was a mistaken method for raising an income for the State. Once abolished, the industry slowly began to pick up again. Nevertheless, for all that, England never thrived at watchmaking as did France, Switzerland and our own nation. One reason was because she clung stubbornly to the old-fashioned fusee long after other people had abandoned it for the spring. There she made a great mistake. Still, after this Pitt tax was abolished, the craft began, as I said, to get on its feet again. Little by little machinery replaced hand labor and as more watches were turned out the price of them dropped. Also, as foreign trade increased, it became possible to import from other countries parts or the entire works of both clocks and watches. Perhaps had not this arrangement been so easy and simple, England would have been obliged to buck up and evolve a big watch industry of her own; as it was she followed the less difficult path and never went into the manufacture on a large scale with factories and all that."

"How about the French?" Christopher inquired.

"The French, no one can deny, were very ingenious watchmakers. To begin with, they had artistic ideas and great cleverness in producing beautiful and unique designs. The wrist watch, held by thousands of people to be such a boon, was of French invention. But it was the Swiss who were the master watchmakers of the Old World. A French horologer moved to Switzerland, carrying his trade with him, and as a result there soon grew up in Geneva a guild of workmen not to be outranked. There had been watchmakers there before, but the standards this guild created established a quality of work hitherto unknown. Men learned their trade and excelled in it until every part of a Swiss watch, one might almost say, was turned out by an expert. Some artisans made nothing but small wheels, some large ones; some fashioned pivots, some drilled jewels in which to set them. Afterward the watch was assembled, as we call it--all its parts being gathered together, put in place, and adjusted. A Geneva watch thus constructed bore what was practically the trademark of excellence. There was nothing finer on the market."

"Were all Swiss watches equally good?" inquired Christopher.

"As a general thing a Swiss watch could be depended on. However, different cities differed in output. None of them maintained the high standard Geneva established, although Neuchatel, its closest rival, made a great many fine and beautiful watches. In other centers, too, the trade was carried on successfully. But it remained for our own country to develop a vast factory system where every part of a watch was constructed beneath one roof. This innovation, together with the fact that eventually watches came to be made on regulation scales with interchangeable parts, greatly bettered as well as increased watch production."

"I've quite a curiosity to know how this big factory system and in fact the whole clock and watch industry got started in America," the boy observed.

His father smiled.

"That," replied he, "is, as Kipling says, another story, and a long one too. I don't know that I myself could follow every step of it. But you will find McPhearson can. So seriously has he taken his profession that he is not to be floored by anything in time-keeping history. Ask him to tell you what you wish to know."

"He does seem to be mighty well up in his trade, doesn't he?" acknowledged the boy, pleased to hear this tribute to his friend. "He has collected quite a few interesting things related to it, too. The night I was there he showed me a lot of old watch papers he has been years picking up. He told me that long ago, when watches were thicker than they are now, there was a space left between the covers and inside it people put all sorts of things--pictures, small designs embroidered or painted on satin, mottoes, figures pricked on paper until they made raised patterns, poems, and portraits."

"So McPhearson has some of those, has he? Well, well! Sometime I must ask him about them," Mr. Burton said. "The custom of carrying such souvenirs was quite common in England at the time. If a man owned a fine ship or was interested in one, he had a small picture of her painted to put inside the cover of his watch; or he carried a likeness of his wife or sweetheart there. Sometimes, on the other hand, he was patriotically inclined and chose to devote this cherished space to a picture of the king or some national idol. Or maybe he was of literary bent and gave over the shrine to a religious text, a love poem, a maxim, or a moral admonition that he wished to keep daily before him. Even we ourselves often paste pictures in our watches. We have never, however, gone into the craze as the English of this particular era did. With them it was a fashionable fad that resulted in all manner of curious conceits. They had no kodaks, you see, and small pictures were rarer possessions then than now." Mr. Burton paused a moment to puff little rings of smoke thoughtfully into the air. "So McPhearson has made a collection of those old watch-papers, has he!" mused he. "Maybe he would loan them to us and let us exhibit them here at the store sometime. They are quite rare now and would be interesting."

"I think he would be tremendously pleased to do so, Dad," responded Christopher. "He is far too modest ever to suggest doing it himself."

"Oh, we should never know it if McPhearson had the Kohinoor right in his pocket. He would be the last person in the world to tell of it," laughed Mr. Burton. "I know what he is. I am also well aware that he has been very kind to you during these past few months. When the time comes right, I mean to let him know that I have not been blind to his interest and generosity."

"I'd like above everything else to give him a--well, some sort of present when my eyes--_if_ my eyes ever get well again," faltered Christopher a trifle uncertainly.

"Come, come, son! You mustn't talk in that strain," objected Mr. Burton, noticing the depression in the boy's tone. "Of course your eyes are coming out all right. Aren't they worlds better already?"

The lad sighed.

"The doctor says they are," replied he wearily.

"Then what are you fussing about?" blustered Burton, Senior. "You've no cause to be downhearted, my son. Why, when you get back to school you will bound ahead like a trooper. You will find that in a few months you will make up all you've lost--see if you don't; and I believe you will enjoy studying, too, after being so long deprived of books."

"I know I shall see more sense in doing it than I ever did before," asserted Christopher with earnestness. "Somehow, since I've talked so much with Mr. McPhearson, learning things seems more worthwhile."

"You like the old Scotchman, don't you?"

"He's a brick!"

"Then you wouldn't consider it a hardship to be in his company for a while?"

"How--_in his company_?" asked the boy, glancing up quickly in puzzled surprise.

"Oh, I don't know," was the vague retort.

Nevertheless, as Mr. Burton turned his eyes away, Christopher noticed his father was smiling the meditative, enigmatic smile that he smiled once in a blue moon. It was usually when some particularly delightful reverie occupied his mind that his face took on that especial expression. The lad wondered what he was thinking about this time.