• The New York Times, December 7, 2004 , Tuesday, December 7, 2004 12 AM

It used to be one of the great free pleasures in New York to go into Tiffany & Company in the afternoon and hear the pens tapping on the counters. Each rap of a salesman's ballpoint signaled the sale of a diamond ring or a pair of cuff links. It intoned happiness and solvency, and, since Tiffany was not the sort of place to expose a customer to the indecency of baring his wallet in public, it summoned a manager, who performed the actual transaction at a discreet distance.

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