Acoustic Telegraph

A dropped iron garden hinge and a hollow brass drawer knob were resting beside the sundial plinth, dead level and uncommissioned. Leaving tuned metal flat at noon struck me as scandalous yard neglect. I lined up my front buffer and shoved the brass knob squarely beneath the hinge's outer leaf. The heavy plate popped upward into a taut, angled signal arm bridging the flagstone seam. With a sharp shove from my coupling rods, I clipped the iron edge with my front wheel rim. The plate snapped down, delivering a sharp, metallic ring that hummed right into the sundial's iron stem. Let anyone checking the hour wonder who authorized the noon dispatch.