What o'clock is it?
                                   Old Saying.

                        Everybody knows, in a general way, that the finest place in the
                     world is- or, alas, was- the Dutch borough of Vondervotteimittiss. Yet as
                     it lies some distance from any of the main roads, being in a somewhat
                     out-of-the-way situation, there are perhaps very few of my readers who
                     have ever paid it a visit. For the benefit of those who have not, therefore,
                     it will be only proper that I should enter into some account of it. And this
                     is indeed the more necessary, as with the hope of enlisting public
                     sympathy in behalf of the inhabitants, I design here to give a history of the
                     calamitous events which have so lately occurred within its limits. No one
                     who knows me will doubt that the duty thus self-imposed will be
                     executed to the best of my ability, with all that rigid impartiality, all that
                     cautious examination into facts, and diligent collation of authorities, which
                     should ever distinguish him who aspires to the title of historian.

                        By the united aid of medals, manuscripts, and inscriptions, I am
                     enabled to say, positively, that the borough of Vondervotteimittiss has
                     existed, from its origin, in precisely the same condition which it at present
                     preserves. Of the date of this origin, however, I grieve that I can only
                     speak with that species of indefinite definiteness which mathematicians
                     are, at times, forced to put up with in certain algebraic formulae. The
                     date, I may thus say, in regard to the remoteness of its antiquity, cannot
                     be less than any assignable quantity whatsoever.

                        Touching the derivation of the name Vondervotteimittiss, I confess
                     myself, with sorrow, equally at fault. Among a multitude of opinions upon
                     this delicate point- some acute, some learned, some sufficiently the
                     reverse- I am able to select nothing which ought to be considered
                     satisfactory. Perhaps the idea of Grogswigg- nearly coincident with that
                     of Kroutaplenttey- is to be cautiously preferred.- It runs:-
                     Vondervotteimittis- Vonder, lege Donder- Votteimittis, quasi und
                     Bleitziz- Bleitziz obsol:- pro Blitzen." This derivative, to say the truth, is
                     still countenanced by some traces of the electric fluid evident on the
                     summit of the steeple of the House of the Town-Council. I do not
                     choose, however, to commit myself on a theme of such importance, and
                     must refer the reader desirous of information to the "Oratiunculae de
                     Rebus Praeter-Veteris," of Dundergutz. See, also, Blunderbuzzard "De
                     Derivationibus," pp. 27 to 5010, Folio, Gothic edit., Red and Black
                     character, Catch-word and No Cypher; wherein consult, also, marginal
                     notes in the autograph of Stuffundpuff, with the Sub-Commentaries of
                     Gruntundguzzell.

                        Notwithstanding the obscurity which thus envelops the date of the
                     foundation of Vondervotteimittis, and the derivation of its name, there can
                     be no doubt, as I said before, that it has always existed as we find it at
                     this epoch. The oldest man in the borough can remember not the slightest
                     difference in the appearance of any portion of it; and, indeed, the very
                     suggestion of such a possibility is considered an insult. The site of the
                     village is in a perfectly circular valley, about a quarter of a mile in
                     circumference, and entirely surrounded by gentle hills, over whose
                     summit the people have never yet ventured to pass. For this they assign
                     the very good reason that they do not believe there is anything at all on
                     the other side.

                        Round the skirts of the valley (which is quite level, and paved
                     throughout with flat tiles), extends a continuous row of sixty little houses.
                     These, having their backs on the hills, must look, of course, to the centre
                     of the plain, which is just sixty yards from the front door of each dwelling.
                     Every house has a small garden before it, with a circular path, a sun-dial,
                     and twenty-four cabbages. The buildings themselves are so precisely
                     alike, that one can in no manner be distinguished from the other. Owing
                     to the vast antiquity, the style of architecture is somewhat odd, but it is
                     not for that reason the less strikingly picturesque. They are fashioned of
                     hard-burned little bricks, red, with black ends, so that the walls look like
                     a chess-board upon a great scale. The gables are turned to the front, and
                     there are cornices, as big as all the rest of the house, over the eaves and
                     over the main doors. The windows are narrow and deep, with very tiny
                     panes and a great deal of sash. On the roof is a vast quantity of tiles with
                     long curly ears. The woodwork, throughout, is of a dark hue and there is
                     much carving about it, with but a trifling variety of pattern for, time out of
                     mind, the carvers of Vondervotteimittiss have never been able to carve
                     more than two objects- a time-piece and a cabbage. But these they do
                     exceedingly well, and intersperse them, with singular ingenuity, wherever
                     they find room for the chisel.

                        The dwellings are as much alike inside as out, and the furniture is all
                     upon one plan. The floors are of square tiles, the chairs and tables of
                     black-looking wood with thin crooked legs and puppy feet. The
                     mantelpieces are wide and high, and have not only time-pieces and
                     cabbages sculptured over the front, but a real time-piece, which makes a
                     prodigious ticking, on the top in the middle, with a flower-pot containing
                     a cabbage standing on each extremity by way of outrider. Between each
                     cabbage and the time-piece, again, is a little China man having a large
                     stomach with a great round hole in it, through which is seen the dial-plate
                     of a watch.

                        The fireplaces are large and deep, with fierce crooked-looking
                     fire-dogs. There is constantly a rousing fire, and a huge pot over it, full of
                     sauer-kraut and pork, to which the good woman of the house is always
                     busy in attending. She is a little fat old lady, with blue eyes and a red
                     face, and wears a huge cap like a sugar-loaf, ornamented with purple and
                     yellow ribbons. Her dress is of orange-colored linsey-woolsey, made
                     very full behind and very short in the waist- and indeed very short in
                     other respects, not reaching below the middle of her leg. This is
                     somewhat thick, and so are her ankles, but she has a fine pair of green
                     stockings to cover them. Her shoes- of pink leather- are fastened each
                     with a bunch of yellow ribbons puckered up in the shape of a cabbage.
                     In her left hand she has a little heavy Dutch watch; in her right she wields
                     a ladle for the sauerkraut and pork. By her side there stands a fat tabby
                     cat, with a gilt toy-repeater tied to its tail, which "the boys" have there
                     fastened by way of a quiz.

                        The boys themselves are, all three of them, in the garden attending
                     the pig. They are each two feet in height. They have three-cornered
                     cocked hats, purple waistcoats reaching down to their thighs, buckskin
                     knee-breeches, red stockings, heavy shoes with big silver buckles, long
                     surtout coats with large buttons of mother-of-pearl. Each, too, has a pipe
                     in his mouth, and a little dumpy watch in his right hand. He takes a puff
                     and a look, and then a look and a puff. The pig- which is corpulent and
                     lazy- is occupied now in picking up the stray leaves that fall from the
                     cabbages, and now in giving a kick behind at the gilt repeater, which the
                     urchins have also tied to his tail in order to make him look as handsome
                     as the cat.

                        Right at the front door, in a high-backed leather-bottomed armed
                     chair, with crooked legs and puppy feet like the tables, is seated the old
                     man of the house himself. He is an exceedingly puffy little old gentleman,
                     with big circular eyes and a huge double chin. His dress resembles that of
                     the boys- and I need say nothing farther about it. All the difference is,
                     that his pipe is somewhat bigger than theirs and he can make a greater
                     smoke. Like them, he has a watch, but he carries his watch in his pocket.
                     To say the truth, he has something of more importance than a watch to
                     attend to- and what that is, I shall presently explain. He sits with his right
                     leg upon his left knee, wears a grave countenance, and always keeps one
                     of his eyes, at least, resolutely bent upon a certain remarkable object in
                     the centre of the plain.

                        This object is situated in the steeple of the House of the Town
                     Council. The Town Council are all very little, round, oily, intelligent men,
                     with big saucer eyes and fat double chins, and have their coats much
                     longer and their shoe-buckles much bigger than the ordinary inhabitants
                     of Vondervotteimittiss. Since my sojourn in the borough, they have had
                     several special meetings, and have adopted these three important
                     resolutions:

                        "That it is wrong to alter the good old course of things:"

                        "That there is nothing tolerable out of Vondervotteimittiss:" and-

                        "That we will stick by our clocks and our cabbages."

                        Above the session-room of the Council is the steeple, and in the
                     steeple is the belfry, where exists, and has existed time out of mind, the
                     pride and wonder of the village- the great clock of the borough of
                     Vondervotteimittiss. And this is the object to which the eyes of the old
                     gentlemen are turned who sit in the leather-bottomed arm-chairs.

                        The great clock has seven faces- one in each of the seven sides of
                     the steeple- so that it can be readily seen from all quarters. Its faces are
                     large and white, and its hands heavy and black. There is a belfry-man
                     whose sole duty is to attend to it; but this duty is the most perfect of
                     sinecures- for the clock of Vondervotteimittis was never yet known to
                     have anything the matter with it. Until lately, the bare supposition of such
                     a thing was considered heretical. From the remotest period of antiquity to
                     which the archives have reference, the hours have been regularly struck
                     by the big bell. And, indeed the case was just the same with all the other
                     clocks and watches in the borough. Never was such a place for keeping
                     the true time. When the large clapper thought proper to say "Twelve
                     o'clock!" all its obedient followers opened their throats simultaneously,
                     and responded like a very echo. In short, the good burghers were fond
                     of their sauer-kraut, but then they were proud of their clocks.

                        All people who hold sinecure offices are held in more or less respect,
                     and as the belfry- man of Vondervotteimittiss has the most perfect of
                     sinecures, he is the most perfectly respected of any man in the world. He
                     is the chief dignitary of the borough, and the very pigs look up to him with
                     a sentiment of reverence. His coat-tail is very far longer- his pipe, his
                     shoe- buckles, his eyes, and his stomach, very far bigger- than those of
                     any other old gentleman in the village; and as to his chin, it is not only
                     double, but triple.

                        I have thus painted the happy estate of Vondervotteimittiss: alas, that
                     so fair a picture should ever experience a reverse!

                        There has been long a saying among the wisest inhabitants, that "no
                     good can come from over the hills"; and it really seemed that the words
                     had in them something of the spirit of prophecy. It wanted five minutes of
                     noon, on the day before yesterday, when there appeared a very
                     odd-looking object on the summit of the ridge of the eastward. Such an
                     occurrence, of course, attracted universal attention, and every little old
                     gentleman who sat in a leather-bottomed arm-chair turned one of his
                     eyes with a stare of dismay upon the phenomenon, still keeping the other
                     upon the clock in the steeple.

                        By the time that it wanted only three minutes to noon, the droll object
                     in question was perceived to be a very diminutive foreign-looking young
                     man. He descended the hills at a great rate, so that every body had soon
                     a good look at him. He was really the most finicky little personage that
                     had ever been seen in Vondervotteimittiss. His countenance was of a
                     dark snuff-color, and he had a long hooked nose, pea eyes, a wide
                     mouth, and an excellent set of teeth, which latter he seemed anxious of
                     displaying, as he was grinning from ear to ear. What with mustachios and
                     whiskers, there was none of the rest of his face to be seen. His head was
                     uncovered, and his hair neatly done up in papillotes. His dress was a
                     tight-fitting swallow-tailed black coat (from one of whose pockets
                     dangled a vast length of white handkerchief), black kerseymere
                     knee-breeches, black stockings, and stumpy-looking pumps, with huge
                     bunches of black satin ribbon for bows. Under one arm he carried a huge
                     chapeau-de-bras, and under the other a fiddle nearly five times as big as
                     himself. In his left hand was a gold snuff-box, from which, as he capered
                     down the hill, cutting all manner of fantastic steps, he took snuff
                     incessantly with an air of the greatest possible self-satisfaction. God bless
                     me!- here was a sight for the honest burghers of Vondervotteimittiss!

                        To speak plainly, the fellow had, in spite of his grinning, an audacious
                     and sinister kind of face; and as he curvetted right into the village, the old
                     stumpy appearance of his pumps excited no little suspicion; and many a
                     burgher who beheld him that day would have given a trifle for a peep
                     beneath the white cambric handkerchief which hung so obtrusively from
                     the pocket of his swallow-tailed coat. But what mainly occasioned a
                     righteous indignation was, that the scoundrelly popinjay, while he cut a
                     fandango here, and a whirligig there, did not seem to have the remotest
                     idea in the world of such a thing as keeping time in his steps.

                        The good people of the borough had scarcely a chance, however, to
                     get their eyes thoroughly open, when, just as it wanted half a minute of
                     noon, the rascal bounced, as I say, right into the midst of them; gave a
                     chassez here, and a balancez there; and then, after a pirouette and a
                     pas-de-zephyr, pigeon-winged himself right up into the belfry of the
                     House of the Town Council, where the wonder-stricken belfry-man sat
                     smoking in a state of dignity and dismay. But the little chap seized him at
                     once by the nose; gave it a swing and a pull; clapped the big chapeau
                     de-bras upon his head; knocked it down over his eyes and mouth; and
                     then, lifting up the big fiddle, beat him with it so long and so soundly, that
                     what with the belfry-man being so fat, and the fiddle being so hollow, you
                     would have sworn that there was a regiment of double-bass drummers all
                     beating the devil's tattoo up in the belfry of the steeple of
                     Vondervotteimittiss.

                        There is no knowing to what desperate act of vengeance this
                     unprincipled attack might have aroused the inhabitants, but for the
                     important fact that it now wanted only half a second of noon. The bell
                     was about to strike, and it was a matter of absolute and pre-eminent
                     necessity that every body should look well at his watch. It was evident,
                     however, that just at this moment the fellow in the steeple was doing
                     something that he had no business to do with the clock. But as it now
                     began to strike, nobody had any time to attend to his manoeuvres, for
                     they had all to count the strokes of the bell as it sounded.

                        "One!" said the clock.

                        "Von!" echoed every little old gentleman in every leather-bottomed
                     arm-chair in Vondervotteimittiss. "Von!" said his watch also; "von!" said
                     the watch of his vrow; and "von!" said the watches of the boys, and the
                     little gilt repeaters on the tails of the cat and pig.

                        "Two!" continued the big bell; and

                        "Doo!" repeated all the repeaters.

                        "Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten!" said the bell.

                        "Dree! Vour! Fibe! Sax! Seben! Aight! Noin! Den!" answered the
                     others.

                        "Eleven!" said the big one.

                        "Eleben!" assented the little ones.

                        "Twelve!" said the bell.

                        "Dvelf!" they replied perfectly satisfied, and dropping their voices.

                        "Und dvelf it is!" said all the little old gentlemen, putting up their
                     watches. But the big bell had not done with them yet.

                        "Thirteen!" said he.

                        "Der Teufel!" gasped the little old gentlemen, turning pale, dropping
                     their pipes, and putting down all their right legs from over their left knees.

                        "Der Teufel!" groaned they, "Dirteen! Dirteen!!- Mein Gott, it is
                     Dirteen o'clock!!"

                        Why attempt to describe the terrible scene which ensued? All
                     Vondervotteimittiss flew at once into a lamentable state of uproar.

                        "Vot is cum'd to mein pelly?" roared all the boys- "I've been ongry
                     for dis hour!"

                        "Vot is com'd to mein kraut?" screamed all the vrows, "It has been
                     done to rags for this hour!"

                        "Vot is cum'd to mein pipe?" swore all the little old gentlemen,
                     "Donder and Blitzen; it has been smoked out for dis hour!"- and they
                     filled them up again in a great rage, and sinking back in their arm-chairs,
                     puffed away so fast and so fiercely that the whole valley was immediately
                     filled with impenetrable smoke.

                        Meantime the cabbages all turned very red in the face, and it seemed
                     as if old Nick himself had taken possession of every thing in the shape of
                     a timepiece. The clocks carved upon the furniture took to dancing as if
                     bewitched, while those upon the mantel-pieces could scarcely contain
                     themselves for fury, and kept such a continual striking of thirteen, and
                     such a frisking and wriggling of their pendulums as was really horrible to
                     see. But, worse than all, neither the cats nor the pigs could put up any
                     longer with the behavior of the little repeaters tied to their tails, and
                     resented it by scampering all over the place, scratching and poking, and
                     squeaking and screeching, and caterwauling and squalling, and flying into
                     the faces, and running under the petticoats of the people, and creating
                     altogether the most abominable din and confusion which it is possible for
                     a reasonable person to conceive. And to make matters still more
                     distressing, the rascally little scape-grace in the steeple was evidently
                     exerting himself to the utmost. Every now and then one might catch a
                     glimpse of the scoundrel through the smoke. There he sat in the belfry
                     upon the belfry-man, who was lying flat upon his back. In his teeth the
                     villain held the bell-rope, which he kept jerking about with his head,
                     raising such a clatter that my ears ring again even to think of it. On his lap
                     lay the big fiddle, at which he was scraping, out of all time and tune, with
                     both hands, making a great show, the nincompoop! of playing "Judy
                     O'Flannagan and Paddy O'Rafferty."

                        Affairs being thus miserably situated, I left the place in disgust, and
                     now appeal for aid to all lovers of correct time and fine kraut. Let us
                     proceed in a body to the borough, and restore the ancient order of things
                     in Vondervotteimittiss by ejecting that little fellow from the steeple.