“Yes,” replied my companion, gravely, “we are not very fastidious in our importations.”

He went on murmuring to himself as usual.  Then he resumed more audibly,—­

“I suppose that most people, upon looking at me, would take me for a foreigner.  But you know how peculiarly native American I am.  I am indeed only a watch, and,” added my modest friend, glancing at the gold chain which hung from my waistcoat button-hole to the pocket, “if you will pardon my melancholy joke, I am for putting Americans only upon guard.”

This military expression suddenly sent my thoughts elsewhere; and for some time the rattling of the cars sounded in my ears like another rattling, and the gentle Charles River was to my eyes the historic Rapidan or Rappahannock.

“Don’t you think,” unobtrusively ticked my watch, “that the exhortation to encourage home-industry has a peculiar force just now?  I mean nothing personal; and I hope you will not think me too forward or fast.”

“I have never had reason to think so,” I answered; “and I am so used to look upon your candid face to know exactly what the hour is, that I shall be very much obliged, if you will tell me the time of day in this matter also; unless, indeed, you should find the jar of the cars too much for you, and prefer to stop before you talk.”

“If I stopped, I certainly could not talk,” my watch answered; “and did you ever know me to stop on account of any jar?”

I hastened to exculpate myself from any intention of unkind insinuation, and my watch ticked steadily on.

“If your mill turns only by a stream that flows to you through your neighbor’s grounds, your neighbor has your flour at his mercy.  You can grind your grist when he chooses, not when you will.”

I nodded.  My watch ticked on,—­

“When you live on a marsh where the tide may suddenly rise house-high without warning, if you are a wise man, you will keep a boat always moored at the door.”

“I certainly will,” responded I, with energy.

“Very well.  Every nation lives on that marsh which is called War.  While war is possible,—­that is to say, in any year this side of the Millennium,—­there is but one sure means of safety, and that is actual independence.  At this moment England is the most striking illustration of this truth.  She is the most instructive warning to us, because she is the least independent and the most hated nation in the world.  England and France and the United States are the three great maritime powers.  We all know how much love is lost just now between England and ourselves.  How is it with her ancient enemy across the Channel?  The answer is contained in the reported remark of Louis Napoleon:  ’Why do the English try to provoke a war with me?  They know, if I should declare war against England, that there is not an old woman in France who would not sell her last shift to furnish me with means to carry it on.’  Great Britain is at this moment under the most enormous bonds to keep the peace.  They are the bonds of vital dependence upon the rest of the world.—­Shall I stop?” asked my watch.