houdin.txt

"This mode of regulating the clock enables me to employ, when
necessary, a little artifice which I find very useful, and
which I will confide to you, reader, on condition however that
you keep it a profound secret, for if once known my expedient
would lose all its effect. When for any reason I desire to
advance or retard the hour of a meal, but secretly pressing a
certain electric button place in my study, I can put forward
or back at pleasure all the clocks, as well as the striking
apparatus. The cook often fancies that the time has passed
somehow very quickly, and I myself have gained a quarter of
an hour, more or less, which I could not have done but for
this expedient"

-- Secrets of Conjuring and Magic or How to Become a Wizard, 
   Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin