(1) How had the writer’s watch run for eighteen months? (2) What, according to the jeweller, was wrong with the watch?

Question

Read the following passages carefully and answer the questions given below them:

My beautiful watch had run eighteen months without losing or gaining and without s breaking any part of its machinery or stopping.

I had come to believe it unfailing in its judgement about the time of day; but at last, one night I let it run down. I grieved about it as if it were a recognized messenger and forerunner of disaster. But soon, I cheered up, set the watch by guess and commanded my anxieties to depart. Next day I stepped into the chief jeweller’s to set it by the exact time and l the head of the establishment took it out of my hand and proceeded to set it for me.

Then he said, “She is four minutes slow – regulator wants pushing up.” I tried to stop him, tried to make him understand that the watch kept perfect time. But, no, all this human cabbage could see s was that the watch was four minutes slow and? the regulator must be pushed up a little and so, while I danced around him in anguish and begged him to let the watch alone, he calmly and cruelly did the shameful deed.

(1) How had the writer’s watch run for eighteen months?

(2) What, according to the jeweller, was wrong with the watch?

(3) Who was responsible for the running down of the watch? How?

(4) What are the feelings of the writer towards the watch? How do we come to know this?

Answer 1

(1) The writer’s watch had showed exact time. It had never gone fast or run slow all those eighteen months. No part of its machinery had broken so far, nor had it stopped any time.

(2) According to the jeweller, the regulator of the watch needed pushing up.

(3) The writer himself was responsible for the watch’s running down. He considered the watch as his unfailing friend. He was supposed to wind the watch every night and he did so for eighteen months. One day, however, he forgot and the watch ran down.

(4) The writer considered his watch beautiful and trustworthy. Without fail, every night he wound up the watch for eighteen months. He was possessive of his watch. Hence, he could not stand the chief jeweller interfering with the internal machinery of the watch.