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Rush enjoys discussing a few of Vic’s friends with Sade. Vic enters and is in a particularly sunny disposition after a victory with Ike Nicefur. Feeling on top of the world, an electric clock gets Vic’s attention, but Sade warns him not to touch it.
Sade has to leave the room to tend to other matters, but will Vic be a good little boy, and keep his hands to himself? Rush is left in charge of baby sitting Vic, and keepping the electric clock safe from his mechanical tinkering.
Temptation grows, but Sade returns to keep Vic in line. Still, he puts in his best arguments to have just one little crack at tweaking that poor little old clock.
Why are clocks and bells so tempting to Vic? I have thought about it and I don’t have an answer.
Vic’s desire to tinker with clocks might come from the need to express his ability outside of his usual accounting job. To conquer an intricate machine, rather than the mundane crunching of numbers. A matter of being faced with a high tech machine, and being it’s master, rather than having some dumb, inanimate machine mastering the human.
Machines can do work that involve a lot of horsepower. Steam engines, tractors, pile drivers, and the like. A watch, or clock is such a tiny, delicate little thing. It’s all about the engineering, the design, and having the smarts to figure it all out. Vic is a smart guy, and even without specialized training, he considers himself qualified to tackle the job.
It does take a certain amount of specialized training though. I think Vic would realize that if he considered his own job. Anybody can do math, but it takes a certain amount of training to know all the techniques of good accounting.
Even in Mark Twain’s short story about a mishap with a valuable, and well working watch when it entered the hands of watch repairmen. Even a trained watch repairman can go overboard, and ruin a good thing if he isn’t careful. Read it here: http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/1565/
Vic has a bit of a problem with compulsive behavior. He goes overboard on certain topics, not learning from his mistakes, or those times when he has crossed a line. Sade regulates him when she can, but she can’t be there round the clock. If she isn’t there to stop him, Vic is sure to make a shot at getting that wide brimmed hat, and embarrassing himself in front of his neighbors. Vic is prone to go overboard on spending money and time on lodge business and trinkets. When Sade’s not around, Vic revels in the flirtatious advances of those secretaries at work, only to catch it from Sade when she finds out. And she always finds out.
That obsessive behavior is the reason Vic can’t leave any defenseless timepiece alone.
I suppose everybody has their pet peeves, and things we have addictive behavior about. It’s just one of those absurd things in the world of Vic and Sade that make the characters so normal.