{"product_id":"2940013695962","title":"Short Circuits","description":"I went the other day into the beautiful home of my two good\u003cbr\u003efriends, the Hespeler-Hyphen-Joneses, and I paused a moment, as my\u003cbr\u003eeye fell on the tall clock that stood in the hall.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Ah,\" said Hespeler-Hyphen-Jones, \"I see you are looking at the\u003cbr\u003eclock--a beautiful thing, isn't it?--a genuine antique.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Does it go?\" I asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Good gracious, no!\" exclaimed my two friends.  \"But isn't it a\u003cbr\u003ebeautiful thing!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Did it ever go?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I doubt it,\" said Hespeler-Hyphen-Jones.  \"The works, of course,\u003cbr\u003eare by Salvolatile--one of the really GREAT clockmakers, you know.\u003cbr\u003eBut I don't know whether the works ever went.  That, I believe, is\u003cbr\u003eone way in which you can always tell a Salvolatile.  If it's a\u003cbr\u003egenuine Salvolatile, it won't go.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In any case,\" I said, \"it has no hands.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Oh, dear, no,\" said Mrs. Jones.  \"It never had, as far as we know.\u003cbr\u003eWe picked it up in such a queer little shop in Amalfi and the man\u003cbr\u003eassured us that it never had had any hands.  He guaranteed it.\u003cbr\u003eThat's one of the things, you know, that you can tell by.  Charles\u003cbr\u003eand I were terribly keen about clocks at that time and really\u003cbr\u003estudied them, and the books all agreed that no genuine Salvolatile\u003cbr\u003ehas any hands.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"And was the side broken, too, when you got it,\" I asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Ah, no,\" said my friend.  \"We had that done by an expert in New\u003cbr\u003eYork after we got back.  Isn't it exquisitely done?  You see, he\u003cbr\u003ehas made the break to look exactly as if some one had rolled the\u003cbr\u003eclock over and stamped on it.  Every genuine Salvolatile is said to\u003cbr\u003ehave been stamped upon like that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Of course, our break is only imitation, but it's extremely well\u003cbr\u003edone, isn't it?  We go to Ferrugi's, that little place on Fourth\u003cbr\u003eAvenue, you know, for everything that we want broken.  They have a\u003cbr\u003esplendid man there.  He can break anything.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Really!\" I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yes, and the day when we wanted the clock done, Charles and I went\u003cbr\u003edown to see him do it.  It was really quite wonderful, wasn't it,\u003cbr\u003eCharles?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yes, indeed.  The man laid the clock on the floor and turned it on\u003cbr\u003eits side and then stood looking at it intently, and walking round\u003cbr\u003eand round it and murmuring in Italian as if he were swearing at it.\u003cbr\u003eThen he jumped in the air and came down on it with both feet.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Did he?\" I asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yes, and with such wonderful accuracy.  Our friend Mr. Appin-\u003cbr\u003eHyphen-Smith--the great expert, you know--was looking at our clock\u003cbr\u003elast week and he said it was marvelous, hardly to be distinguished\u003cbr\u003efrom a genuine fractura.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"But he did say, didn't he, dear,\" said Mrs. Jones, \"that the\u003cbr\u003ebetter way is to throw a clock out of a fourth story window?  You\u003cbr\u003esee, that was the height of the Italian houses in the Thirteenth\u003cbr\u003eCentury--is it the Thirteenth Century I mean, Charles?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yes,\" said Charles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Do you know, the other day I made the silliest mistake about a\u003cbr\u003espoon.  I thought it was a Twelfth Century spoon and said so and in\u003cbr\u003ereality it was only Eleven and a half.  Wasn't it, Charles?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yes,\" said Charles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"But do come into the drawing room and have some tea.  And, by the\u003cbr\u003eway, since you are interested in antiques, do look please at my\u003cbr\u003eteapot.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It looks an excellent teapot,\" I said, feeling it with my hand,\u003cbr\u003e\"and it must have been very expensive, wasn't it?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Oh, not THAT one,\" interposed Mr. Hespeler-Hyphen-Jones.  \"That is\u003cbr\u003enothing.  We got that here in New York at Hoffany's--to make tea\u003cbr\u003ein.  It IS made of solid silver, of course, and all that, but even\u003cbr\u003eHoffany's admitted that it was made in America and was probably not\u003cbr\u003emore than a year or so old and had never been used by anybody else.\u003cbr\u003eIn fact, they couldn't guarantee it in any way.\"","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47145824420080,"sku":"2940013695962","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013695962_p0.jpg?v=1763584123","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013695962","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}