Upon this subject, however, I shall forbear to dilate.  I will not describe the city of Edinburgh.  Every one has been to the city of Edinburgh.  Every one has been to Edinburgh —­ the classic Edina.  I will confine myself to the momentous details of my own lamentable adventure.  Having, in some measure, satisfied my curiosity in regard to the extent, situation, and general appearance of the city, I had leisure to survey the church in which I was, and the delicate architecture of the steeple.  I observed that the aperture through which I had thrust my head was an opening in the dial-plate of a gigantic clock, and must have appeared, from the street, as a large key-hole, such as we see in the face of the French watches.  No doubt the true object was to admit the arm of an attendant, to adjust, when necessary, the hands of the clock from within.  I observed also, with surprise, the immense size of these hands, the longest of which could not have been less than ten feet in length, and, where broadest, eight or nine inches in breadth.  They were of solid steel apparently, and their edges appeared to be sharp.  Having noticed these particulars, and some others, I again turned my eyes upon the glorious prospect below, and soon became absorbed in contemplation.

From this, after some minutes, I was aroused by the voice of Pompey, who declared that he could stand it no longer, and requested that I would be so kind as to come down.  This was unreasonable, and I told him so in a speech of some length.  He replied, but with an evident misunderstanding of my ideas upon the subject.  I accordingly grew angry, and told him in plain words, that he was a fool, that he had committed an ignoramus e-clench-eye, that his notions were mere insommary Bovis, and his words little better than an ennemywerrybor’em.  With this he appeared satisfied, and I resumed my contemplations.

It might have been half an hour after this altercation when, as I was deeply absorbed in the heavenly scenery beneath me, I was startled by something very cold which pressed with a gentle pressure on the back of my neck.  It is needless to say that I felt inexpressibly alarmed.  I knew that Pompey was beneath my feet, and that Diana was sitting, according to my explicit directions, upon her hind legs, in the farthest corner of the room.  What could it be?  Alas!  I but too soon discovered.  Turning my head gently to one side, I perceived, to my extreme horror, that the huge, glittering, scimetar-like minute-hand of the clock had, in the course of its hourly revolution, descended upon my neck.  There was, I knew, not a second to be lost.  I pulled back at once —­ but it was too late.  There was no chance of forcing my head through the mouth of that terrible trap in which it was so fairly caught, and which grew narrower and narrower with a rapidity too horrible to be conceived.  The agony of that moment is not to be imagined.  I threw up my hands and endeavored, with all my strength,