"Time."
Two feeble old men are gently tricked by their friend Duke in regard to a watch that runs on the "lectric" of his body. Duke, a "masterpiece of a man" with "the secret of a devilish perpetual youth," shares qualities of other tricksters and remarkably fit men in Bates's works. In the New Statesman and Nation (August 20, 1932), The Story (April 1933), The Best Short Stories of 1933 (1933), The Best British short stories of 1933 (1933), The Woman Who Had Imagination and Other Stories (1934), Country Tales (1938), Country Tales (1940), Seven by Five/The Best of H.E. Bates (1963), A Month by the Lake and Other Stories (1987). Reprinted in The Best Short Stories of 1933 (London: Cape, 1933), The Best British Short Stories of 1933 (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1933), Short Stories by Modern Writers (1936), A Day Saved and Other Modern Stories (1983).
Online Full Text at Hathi Trust Digital Library.