Part 4 (2/2)
No such effect had ever been seen in the Five Towns, and the felicity of the audience exceeded all previous felicities The audience yelled, roared, shrieked, gasped, trembled, and punched itself in a furious passion of pleasure Theyplates They understand plates In the Five Towns a man will carry not seven but twenty-seven dozen plates on a swaying plank for eight hours a day up steps and down steps, and in doorways and out of doorways, and not break one plate in seven years! Judge, therefore, the simple but terrific satisfaction of a Five Towns audience in the hugeness of the calamity Moreover, every plate smashed means a demand for a new plate and increased prosperity for the Five Towns The grateful crowd in the auditoriue reaths, if it had known that wreaths were used for other occasions than funerals; which it did not know
Fresh coreeable exercise of uncontrolled laughter It was obvious that one of the waiters was about to fall And in the enforced tranquillity of a new dread every dyspeptic person in the house was deliciously conscious of a sudden freedoreeable exercise of uncontrolled laughter, and wished fervently that he could laugh like that after every e violet hat and disappeared beneath the surface of a sea of crockery The other waiter fell too, but the sea was not deep enough to drown a couple of the themselves, decided that they must not be outclassed in this competition of havoc, and they overthrew the table and everything on it, and all the other tables and everything on all the other tables The audience was now a field of artillery which nothing could silence The waiters arose, and, opening the sideboard, disclosed many hundreds of unsuspected plates of all kinds, ripe for se All four performers revelled and ed in s produced froe concealments, and finally the tables and chairs were broken to pieces, and each object on the walls was torn down and flung in bits on to the gorgeous general debris, to the top of which clambered the violet hat, necklace and yellow petticoat, brandishi+ng one single little plate, whose life had been miraculously spared Shrieks of joy in that little plate played over the din like lightning in a thunderstor up fifteen times, and fifteen timent of the frenzied and boisterous testiedian, no coiven such intense pleasure And yet none of the four had spoken a word
Such is genius
At the end of the fifteenth call the stage-uaranteed that two thousand four hundred plates had been broken
The lights went up Strongtears fro each other in the manner of old friends Such is art
”Well, that orth a bob, that was!” muttered Edward Henry to hieneral fate
nobody, being present, could have escaped it He was enchanted He had utterly forgotten every care
”Good evening, Mr Machin,” said a voice at his side Not only he turned but nearly everyone in the vicinity turned The voice was the voice of the stout and splendidof authority above the rising tinkle of the bar behind the Grand Circle
”Oh! How d'ye do, Mr Dakins?” Edward Henry held out a cordial hand, for even the greatest reeted in a place of entertain director thereof Further, his identity was now recognized
”Haven't you seen those gentle to you?” said Mr Dakins, proudly deprecating complimentary remarks on the show
”Which box?”
Mr Dakins' hand indicated a stage-box And Henry, looking, saw three men, one unknown to him, the second, Robert Brindley, the architect, of Bursley, and the third, Dr Stirling
Instantly his conscience leapt up within hiht of rabies
Yes, sobered in the fraction of a second, he thought of rabies
Supposing that, after all, in spite of Mr Long's Muzzling Order, as cited by his infant son, an odd case of rabies should have lingered in the British Isles, and supposing that Carlo had been infected !
Not i was in the auditorium?
”You knoo of them?” said Mr Dakins
”Yes”
”Well, the third's a Mr Bryany He's er to Mr Seven Sachs” Mr
Dakins' tone was respectful
”And who's Mr Seven Sachs?” asked Edward Henry, absently It was a stupid question
He was impressively informed that Mr Seven Sachs was the arch-fa the end of a provincial tour, which had surpassed all records of provincial tours, and that he would be at the Theatre Royal, Hanbridge, next week Edward Henry then res had been full of Mr Seven Sachs for sons to you,” said Mr Dakins, referring to the occupants of the stage-box
Edward Henry waved a reply to the box
”Here! I'll take you there the shortest way,” said Mr Dakins