The Regent

d that his mother was at last coming down for tea, he sped like a threatened delinquent into t

ty. Edward Henry sincerely believed in light and heat; he was almost the only person in the Five Towns who did. In the Five Towns people have fires in their grates-not to warm the room, but to make the room bright. Seemingly [10] they use their pride to keep themselves warm. At any rate, whenever Edward Henry talked to them of radiators, they would sternly reply that a radiator did not and could not brighten a room. Edward Henry had made the great discovery that an efficient chandelier will brighten a room better even than a fire, and he had gilded his radiator. The notion of gilding the radiator was not his own; he had seen a gi

cigar-cabinet and the mechanical piano-player. At one brief period he had hovered a good deal about the revolving bookcase containing the Encyclopaedia (to w

ad also chosen the pattern of the paper, but it is a fact that he could spend hours in any room without [11] even seeing the pattern of its paper. (In the same way his wif

oved and told the hour. Two of the oriel windows of the castle were realistic holes in its masonry; through one of them you could put a key to wind up the clock, and through the other you could put a key to wind up the secret musical box, which played sixteen different tunes. He ha

gret, and dropped it and the cigar's red collar with care into a large copper bowl on the centre table, instead of flinging it against the Japanese umbrella in the fireplace. (A grave

ranged the thick dark blue curtains behind the radiator, and finally yielded to the silent call of the mechanical piano-player. He quite knew that to dally with the piano-player while smoking a high-class cigar was to insult the cigar. But he

did so he w

d and his dog-bite? I wonder why she didn't! She seemed only to mention it by

nswer to this riddle. He was aware of the answer

y about those kids and their precious illnesses. And she's doing t

pstairs long since. He knew that he ought now to go, and the sooner the better! But somehow he could not go; he could not bring himself to go. In the minor and major crises of married life there are n

e virtuous, sniggered. "Dirty teeth, indeed! Blood-poisoning, indeed! Why not rabies, w

s of the music rolls, he sudden

ffixing the roll to the mechani

m in a high degree. He justifiably reckoned that he could distinguish between honest and dishonest advertising. He made a deep study of the question of mechanical players, and deliberately came to the conclusion that the Pianisto was the best. It was also the most costly. But one

taste for music. The whole world of musical compositions was his to conquer, and he conquered it at the rate of about two great masters a month. From Handel to Richard Strauss, even from Palestrina to Debussy, the achievements of genius lay at his mercy. He criticized them with a freedom that was entirely unprejudiced by tradition. Beethov

the blue cigar smoke in his nostrils, and the effluence of the gilded radiator behind him, and the intimacy of the drawn window-curtains and the closed and curtained door folding him in from the world, and the agony of the music grieving his artistic soul to the core-as he played there he grew gradually happier and happier, and the zest of existence seemed to return. It was not only that he felt the elemental, unfathomable satisfaction of

e room. She had r

istakable lineaments of the outraged mother appeared. That she should address him as "Denry" proved the intensity of her agitation. Years ago, when he had be

sed pl

lous air of innocence. "I'm only p

ece for what it was. But of course she did, as a fact, know somethin

hoose some other evening for you

e lightning, "why did you stick me ou

come upstairs," she

my dear! All r

tairs in a rather

1