When Mason and Dixon arriv’d in St. Helena, the observers’ Teams exchang’d Clocks,– Dixon barely ashore, turning about and taking the Shelton Clock back to the Cape by the next ship out, and Mason setting up the Ellicott Clock in Maskylyne’s Rooms in James’s Town. For a short while, the two Clocks stood side by side, set upon a level Shelf, as just outside, unceasingly, the Ocean beat… However well sprung the Bracket arrangements, these Walls were fix’d ultimately to the Sea, whose Rhythm must have affected the Pendula of both clocks in ways we do not fully appreciate,– the Pendulum, as is well known, being a Clock’s most sensitive Organ of communication,– here allowing the two to chat, in the Interval between the one’s being taken from its Shipping-Case and the other’s being nail’d up in its own, to go with Dixon to the Cape. Both are veterans of the Transit of Venus, as well as having been employ’d, Hour upon dark Hour, in Astronomers’ work, from Equal-Altitude Duty to the Timing of Jupiter’s Moons, which back and forth like restless Ducklings keep vanishing behind their Maternal Planet, only quickly to reappear. “You’ll be on Duty twenty-four hours, is what it comes to,” the Elicott Clock advises. “Along with the usual fixation on one’s rate of Going.”

“So what’s it like in Cape Town?” the other wishes to know.

“The air is ever moist, as you’d say,” replies the Elicott Clock,– whose only knowledge of the Cape has been gather’d in the Rainy Season,– before going on to recite a list of Horologick Ailments it currently suffers from, from Sluggish Main-spring to Breguet’s Palsy, the other’s Bob swinging along in Sympathy.

“Then I collect, all there’s not Water-proof’d.”

“They do take advantage of ev’ry Break in the weather to make it more so.”

“Alas, and what else, then? The Dutch Clocks, what are they like?”

“Hmm…of course much will depend on you. Some get along with Dutch Clocks quite well… Haven’t Dutchmen, for Generations, been living with Dutch Clocks in the House, after all,– even whilst they sleep? Indeed ‘tis exactly that Dutch Stolidity of Character that’s requir’d, for their Clocks strike each Quarter-hour, and without warning,– BONGGbing! Sort of effect. Takes a certain Personality, `s what I’m saying.”

The Elicott Clock is referring the absence of a striking-train, which in British Clocks can usually be heard in Motion a bit before the Hammer begins hitting the bell. But in those Cape Clocks that happen, like the Vrooms’ and Zeemanns’ to’ve been made in Holland, `tis rather Cams upon a separate Wheel, gear’d to the Minute Hand that cause the striking,– so there is never warning.

“Um,” says the other. “And how’d your British Observers react to that?”

“Mason, being the more phlegmatick of the two, kept silent longer, his rage however rising bit by bit at each unannounc’d Striking, till at last it must brim over. Dixon,– in whose Care you’ll be,– preferr’d to express himself otherwise, choosing, each time he was caught unawares, to…well, scream,– and most vexedly too, aye sets a Time-piece’s Rods to humming, damme ‘f it don’t.”

“I must hope that my own remain less resonant with his Cries, then. Mustn’t I.”

“Ah, he soon relents, and vows never again to be assaulted so rudely,– yet sure as time, fifteen minutes later, ‘twill happen again. He could never, not even upon his last day there, remember that that Dutch Clock was going to strike.” They share a tremolo of amusement.

“Wonderful chatting with you like this. Well! let’s just tick these off once more,– there’re the Rains, the Rudeness of the native Clocks, the Mental Instability of the Astronomer ‘pon whom I shall be depending utterly…anything we’ve left out?”

“The Gunfire at the Curfew, which has never once been on time,– and might easily lead, in the uncaution’d, to a loss of Sanity.”

“In that case, allow me to thank you for your part in preserving mine,– tho’ I do so in advance, for who knows when next we’ll meet?”

“Next Transit of Venus, I suppose.”

“Eight years hence! Do hope it’s not that long.”

“Time will tell….”

“Anything you’d like to know about St. Helena? or Maskelyne?”

“I hear Steps coming.”

“Quickly, then,– Maskelyne is insane, but not as insane as some, among whom you must particularly watch out for—“

Too late. ‘Tis Dixon and a Ship’s Carpenter and before either Clock can bid the other Adieu, the Shelton Clock is taken, crated up, and stow’d aboard the taut and lacquer’d Indiaman straining at her Anchor-Cables to be out in the Trades again. And indeed, what they wanted to talk about all along was the Ocean. Somehow they could not get to the Topick. Neither Clock really knows what it is,– beyond an undeniably rhythmick Being of some sort,– tho’ they’ve spent most of their lives in Range of it, sometimes no more than a Barrel-Stave and a Hull-Plank away. Its Wave-beats have ever been with them, yet neither can quite say, where upon it they may lie. What they feel is an Attraction, more and less resistable, to beat in Synchrony with it, regardless of their Pendulum-lengths, or even the divisions of the Day. The closest they come to talking of it is when the Shelton Clock confides, “I don’t really like Ships much.”

“Ha! Try being below the water-line in one that’s under attack sometime.”

“Not sure that I want to hear about that.”

“Thank you. There’s never much to tell, so I have to embellish. ‘Tis a task I’m happy to avoid.”

When Dixon and the Shelton Clock are alone at last, “Well! Here we are, sailing back to Cape Town, and all for thee! Eeh! So! Thoo’re a Clock! Interesting Work, I’ll bet…?” The Clock cannot compensate for a fine quivering in its Pendulum, which Dixon notices. “Tha’ve probably been hearing Tales about me. Setting a-jangle all the sensitive Clock-work about with m’ Screaming. Yet, think of these episodes as regular Tonicks, without which tha might succumb to the weather, which can get unusual, or the ways of the Dutch…?”