What does a cold welcome refer to? On Wednesday evening, we went to the Town Hall. It was the last day of the year and a large crowd of people had gathered under the Town Hall clock. It would strike twelve in twenty minutes time. Fifteen minutes passed and then, at five to twelve, the clock stopped. The big minute hand did not move. We waited and waited, but nothing happened. Suddenly someone shouted. Its two minutes past twelve! The clock has stopped! I looked at my watch. It was true. The big clock refused to welcome the New Year. At that moment, everybody began to laugh and sing. 星期三的晚上，我們?nèi)チ耸姓d。 那是一年的最后一天，一大群人聚集在市政廳的大鐘下面。再過20分鐘，大鐘將敲響12下。15分鐘過去了，而就在11點(diǎn)55分時，大鐘停了。那根巨大的分針不動了。 我們等啊等啊，可情況沒有變化。突然有人喊道：“已經(jīng)12點(diǎn)零2分了！那鐘已經(jīng)停了！”我看了一下我的手表，果真如此。那座大鐘不愿意迎接新年。此時，大家已經(jīng)笑了起來，同時唱起了歌。 welcome n. 歡迎；v. 歡迎 crowd n. 人群 gather v. 聚集 hand n. （表或機(jī)器的）指針 shout v. 喊叫 refuse v. 拒絕 laugh v. 笑