The Man Without a Watch

"The Man Without a Watch" by Charles Battell Loomis is a whimsical and insightful tale that explores the life of a man who, as the title suggests, goes without a timepiece. The narrative delves into themes of time, society, and modern life, portraying how the absence of a watch influences his daily experiences and interactions. Through humor and allegory, Loomis examines the constraints that a rigid adherence to time imposes on individuals, inviting readers to reflect on the nature of time and its impact on human behavior. The book combines light-hearted storytelling with deeper philosophical musings, making it an engaging read for those interested in the quirks of life and the concept of time.

• Short story

								
Thomas Morley knew the value of promptitude. He was a young man on
whom ninety-two seasons had poured benefits and adversities, although
many of the latter he took to be the former, his temperament shedding
sorrow as a duck does water, to use a castanean simile.

He was a born and bred New-Yorker, but at the time of which we write
he had been living for the last ten or twelve months in Uxton, up
among the hills of northwestern Connecticut, studying the natives;
for he was a writer.

Having filled a portfolio with material for enough dialect stories to
run one of the great magazines for a year, he determined to seek his
matter in the metropolis, and to that end applied for a reportership
on the New York “Courier-Journal,” in which paper many of his
brightest things had appeared at remunerative rates.

As has been said, he knew the value of promptitude, so when, at eight
o’clock one night, Farmer Phelps’s hired man handed him a letter
from James Fitzgerald, managing editor of the “Courier-Journal,”
asking him to come and see him in regard to a reportership as soon as
possible, he made up his mind to take the train which left Winsonia,
four miles distant, at six o’clock next morning. This would enable
him to reach the office by half-past ten, and probably catch Mr.
Fitzgerald on his arrival at his desk.

Next morning he arose at four, and when he left the house he had
sixty minutes in which to walk four miles downhill--ample time,
surely.

It was so ample that he would have had fifteen minutes to spare if
the home clock had been right. As it was, he arrived at the station
in time to see the train rapidly disappearing around a curve, on its
way to New York. He laughed good-naturedly with the baggageman, and
asked him when the next down train was due.

“Seven-thirty, sharp. You’ll not have to wait long.”

Seven-thirty. That would bring him into the presence of Mr.
Fitzgerald at just about the time he arrived at his sanctum. “Better
than to have to wait in a presumably stuffy room,” said he to
himself, philosophically. He lit a cigar, and, as the air was bracing
and he was fond of walking, he struck out into a five-mile-an-hour
gait down the main street of Winsonia.

His footsteps led him farther than he had intended going, and when
he reached the Baptist church at East Winsonia, he saw by its clock
that it lacked but forty minutes of train-time, and he had four miles
to make. He threw away the stump of his cigar, which had been out
for some time, broke into a jog-trot, and, after covering a mile, he
caught his second wind and mended his pace.

His fleetness would have served its turn had not a malicious breeze
blown his hat over a high iron fence that surrounded a churchyard.
By the time he had climbed the fence and recovered his hat he had
consumed so many precious minutes that, although he sprinted the
last mile, he arrived at the station only in time to see train No. 2
disappearing around that hateful curve.

The baggageman was standing on the platform, and he said:

“Ain’t once enough?”

“More than enough for most people,” said Thomas, whose rare good
nature was proof against even such a remark at such a time.

The next train for New York was due at nine fifty-six. Being somewhat
blown, he walked around the corner to a billiard-room, meaning to sit
down and watch whatever game might be in progress.

“It may be,” soliloquized Thomas, “that Fitzgerald won’t reach the
office until after lunch, and I’ll get there at half-past two, in
time to see him when he’s feeling good.”

He met Ned Halloway at the billiard-room, and when Ned asked him to
take a cue he consented. Billiards was a game in which he was apt to
lose--himself, at any rate; yet to-day his mind was enough on the
alert to enable him, after a time, to glance at the clock over the
bar in the next room. It was forty-five minutes past eight.

They began another game. Later he looked again at the clock. A
quarter of nine. After another game he looked up once more. “Fifteen
minutes to ni--. Say, Ned, what’s the matter with that clock?” Ned
looked at it, then at his watch. “Why, it’s stopped!”

“You settle--see you later.” And Thomas was gone like a shot.

This time he had the rare pleasure of noting how the rear car of a
train grows rapidly smaller as it recedes. In a moment the train
disappeared around the curve before mentioned.

“Say, Mr. Morley, you’ve time to miss the next, easy,” said the
baggageman, dryly.

Thomas was vexed, but he said pleasantly: “When is it due?”

“Half-past two. Better wait here and make sure of it.”

“Oh, dry up! No; do the other thing; it’s on me.”

After this little duty had been performed, Thomas, with an
irrelevancy of action that might have struck an observer as amusing,
made his way to the Y.M.C.A. rooms to read the magazines.

“Let’s see,” said he; “I’ll get to his desk at seven. He’ll be hard
at work, and, if he engages me, he may send me out on an assignment
at once. Glad I missed the other trains.”

Thus was Thomas wont to soliloquize. At one o’clock he went to
Conley’s Inn, and sat down to one of those dinners that attract
drummers to a hotel. Necessarily, then, it was a good dinner, and one
over which he lingered until nearly two. Then he went into the office
and sat down.

The room was warm, and his dinner had made him drowsy. He decided to
take a little nap. He had the faculty of waking when he pleased, and
he willed to do so at fifteen minutes past two. It would be weakness
for him to get to the station with too much time to spare, but this
would give him a quarter-hour in which to go a half-mile.

His awakening faculty would seem to have been slightly out of order
that day, however, and he did not arouse until twenty-nine minutes
past two by the hotel clock.

Of course he did not make a fool of himself by trying to do a
half-mile in sixty seconds; but he walked leisurely toward the
station, intending to get his ticket and have that off his mind.

He laughed heartily at a corpulent fellow who darted by him, carrying
a grip.

His laughter ceased, however, when, on turning the corner, he
discerned the aforesaid fat man in the act of being assisted on
to the platform of the last car by the brakeman, the train having
acquired considerable momentum. Then he saw it disappear around a
curve which was part of the road at that point. There were three
explanations possible: either the train was behind time, or else his
awakening faculty was in good repair, or the hotel clock was fourteen
minutes fast. The latter proved to be the correct explanation of the
somewhat vexing occurrence.

“Say, that’s a bad habit you have of missing trains,” said his friend
the baggageman. “Goin’ to miss another--or do anything else?”

“No,” said Thomas, shortly.

He knew that the next train at five was the last. This would make it
possible to reach Fitzgerald at half-past nine. “Right in the heat

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