I stood there and took a couple of puffs, then I held it in my hand and went on toward the corner.
I passed a jeweller's window, but I looked away in time.
At the corner two bootblacks caught me, one on either side, shrill and raucous, like blackbirds.
I gave the cigar to one of them, and the other one a nickel.
Then they let me alone.
The one with the cigar was trying to sell it to the other for the nickel.
There was a clock, high up in the sun, and I thought about how, when you dont want to do a thing, your body will try to trick you into doing it, sort of unawares.
I could feel the muscles in the back of my neck, and then I could hear my watch ticking away in my pocket and after a while I had all the other sounds shut away, leaving only the watch in my pocket.
I turned back up the street, to the window.
He was working at the table behind the window.
He was going bald.
There was a glass in his eye--a metal tube screwed into his face.
I went in.
The place was full of ticking, like crickets in September grass, and I could hear a big clock on the wall above his head.
He looked up, his eye big and blurred and rushing beyond the glass.
I took mine out and handed it to him.
"I broke my watch."
He flipped it over in his hand.
"I should say you have.
You must have stepped on it."
"Yes, sir.
I knocked it off the dresser and stepped on it in the dark.
It's still running though."
He pried the back open and squinted into it.
"Seems to be all right.
I cant tell until I go over it, though.
I'll go into it this afternoon."
"I'll bring it back later," I said. "Would you mind telling me if any of those watches in the window are right?"
He held my watch on his palm and looked up at me with his blurred rushing eye.
"I made a bet with a fellow," I said. "And I forgot my glasses this morning."
"Why, all right," he said.
He laid the watch down and half rose on his stool and looked over the barrier.
Then he glanced up at the wall. "It's twen--"
"Dont tell me," I said, "please sir.
Just tell me if any of them are right."
He looked at me again.
He sat back on the stool and pushed the glass up onto his forehead.
It left a red circle around his eye and when it was gone his whole face looked naked.
"What're you celebrating today?" he said.
"That boat race aint until next week, is it?"
"No, sir.
This is just a private celebration.
Birthday.
Are any of them right?"
"No.
But they haven't been regulated and set yet.
If you're thinking of buying one of them--"
"No, sir.
I dont need a watch.
We have a clock in our sitting room.