Joy English · Level C2 · Short storiesjoy-english.com
The clockmaker of the lower quarter
Name:Date:
Follow a fable-like story with abstract ideas and subtle humour.
Listen to each sentence and write what you hear.
Audio and answer checking: https://joy-english.com/listening-lessons/the-clockmaker-of-the-lower-quarter
Words to know
- cramped
- Too small and crowded.
- flawless
- Perfect, with no mistakes.
- drift
- To move slowly away from the correct position.
- chimed
- Made a ringing sound, as a bell does.
Answer key
- Tomas repaired clocks in a cramped shop where, oddly enough, no two of them ever agreed about the time.“Oddly enough” is an aside, spoken with a dip in pitch. “No two of them” means not even one pair.
- Customers assumed this was carelessness, but he insisted that a room full of identical hours would be a kind of lie.“Insisted that” is followed by “would be”. “Identical” has stress on the second syllable.
- One winter a stranger offered him a fortune for a single flawless clock, one that would never drift by a second.“A fortune” means a very large amount of money. “Flawless” is stressed on the first syllable: FLAW-less.
- Tomas studied the offer for a long time, then politely declined, saying that perfection was the one thing he could not repair.“Declined” means said no. The final clause is an elegant reversal: the repairman cannot repair perfection.
- The stranger left puzzled, and behind him every clock in the shop chimed, a little out of step, as if in applause.“Out of step” links as “outa step” in fast speech. “As if in applause” compares the chimes to clapping.