He was sitting in the summer-house smoking, and reading over a
bulb-list when Peter Paul found him.
"Uncle Jacob, why do dandelion clocks tell different time to different
people? Sixty seconds make a minute, sixty minutes make an hour,
twenty-four hours make a day, three hundred and sixty-five days make a
year. That's right, isn't it? Hours are the same length for everybody,
aren't they? But if I got to tea-time when it was only two o'clock
with Anna, and went on like that, first the days and then the years
would go much quicker with me, and I don't know if I should die
sooner,--but it couldn't be, could it?"
"Certainly not," said Uncle Jacob; and he went on with his list.
"Yellow Pottebakker, Yellow Tournesol and Yellow Rose."
"Then the fairy clocks tell lies?" said Peter Paul.
"That you must ask Godfather Time," replied Uncle Jacob, jocosely. "He
is responsible for the clocks and the hour-glasses."
"Where does he live?" asked the boy.
But Uncle Jacob had spread the list on the summer-house table; he was
fairly immersed in it and in a cloud of tobacco smoke, and Peter Paul
did not like to disturb him.
"Twenty-five Bybloemens, twenty-five Bizards, twenty-five Roses, and
a seedling-bed for first bloom this year."
* * * * *
Some of Uncle Jacob's seedling tulips were still "breeders," whose
future was yet unmarked[6] (he did not name them in hope, as he had
christened his nephew!) when Peter Paul went to sea.
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