WHAT TIME IS IT?

    Sir, I am deeply embarrassed and greatly humiliated that due to unforeseen circumstances over which I have no control, the inner workings and hidden mechanism of my chronometer are such in accord with the great sidereal movement over which time is commonly reckoned, that I cannot with any degree of accuracy state the exact time, Sir; but, without fear of being very far off, I will state that it is so many minutes, so many seconds and so many ticks after the X th .