104 History of Gutta-Percha Willie,

 

making the machine wind more slowly, he might
then be able to shorten instead of ETRE the
string.

At length, after much pondering; he came to see
that if, instead of the spool, he were to fix on the
axis a small cogged wheel—that is, a wheel with
teeth—and then make these cogs fit into the cogs
of a much larger wheel, the small wheel, which
would turn once with every turn of the water-wheel,
must turn a great many times before it could turn
the big wheel once. Then he must fix the spool
on the axis of this great slow wheel, when, turning
only as often as the wheel turned, the spool would
wind the thread so much the more slowly.

I will not weary my reader with any further
detail of Willie's efforts and failures. It is enough
to say that he was at last so entirely successful in
timing his machine, for the run of the water was
always the same, that he could tell exactly how
much thread it would wind in a given time. Hav-
ing then measured off the thread with a mark of
ink for the first hour, two for the second, and so
on, he was able to set his alarum according to the
time at which he wished to be woke by the pull at
his wrist.

But if any one had happened to go into the
garden after the household was asleep, and had
come upon the toy water-wheel, working away in
starlight or moonlight, how little, even if he had