A New Alarum, 103

 

touches; and, delighted with his acquisition of the
rudiments of a new trade, he carried the spool
home with him, to try once more the possibility of
educating his water-wheel into a watchman.

That night the pull did indeed come, but, alas
before he had even fallen asleep.

Something seemed to be always going wrong!
He concluded already that it was a difficult thing
to make a machine which should do just what the
maker wished. The spool had gone flying round,
and, had swallowed up the thread incredibly fast.
He made haste to get the end off his wrist, and
saw it fly through the little hole in the window
frame, and away ae the rest of it, to be wound
on the whirling spool.

Disappointing as this was, however, there was
progress in it: he had got the thing to work, and
all that remained was to regulate it. But this turned
out the most difficult part of the affair by far. He
saw at once that if he were only to make the thread
longer, which was the first mode that suggested
itself, he would increase the constant danger there
was of its getting fouled, not to mention the
awkwardness of using such a quantity of it. If
the kitten were to get into the room, for instance,
after he had laid it down, she would ruin his every
hope for the time being; and in Willie’s eyes six-
pence was a huge sum to ask from his father. But
if, on the contrary, he could find out any mode of