“This marks the end of an era,” Gerald W. Bessette said, clapping the watchmaker on the back as if they were old school chums. “Workers once tuned their ears to this very tower to keep watch over the beginning and end of their toiling each day. And now”—the man spread his arms wide, as if unrolling the horizon of the whole city—“it marks the beginning of a new epoch. A time of . . .” He furrowed his brow, apparently having used up all his words to capture his grandiose swell of feeling. “A time of something really, really good.”
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