It would run awhile and then stop awhile, and then run awhile again, and so on, using its own discretion about the intervals.
And every time it went off it kicked back like a musket.

I padded my breast for a few days, but finally took the watch to another watchmaker.
He picked it all to pieces, and turned the ruin over and over under his glass; and then he said there appeared to be something the matter with the hair-trigger.

He fixed it, and gave it a fresh start.

It did well now, except that always at ten minutes to ten the hands would shut together like a pair of scissors, and from that time forth they would travel together.

The oldest man in the world could not make head or tail of the time of day by such a watch, and so I went again to have the thing repaired.