"Tom Purdom-A Proper Place To Live" - читать интересную книгу автора (Purdom Tom)

A Proper Place To Live
by Tom Purdom
This story copyright 2000 by Tom Purdom. This copy was created for Jean Hardy's personal use. All
other rights are reserved. Thank you for honoring the copyright.

Published by Seattle Book Company, www.seattlebook.com.

* * *


"Do you have any good works which must be performed this afternoon?" Sir Harold Tudor-Smith
asked his wife at lunch (which was, of course, her breakfast).
"Today is Tuesday, Harold."
"Ah. yes. Of course."
Tuesday was the day Lady Millicent taught reading to the children of widows whose husbands had
been employed in the tea trade. The Tudor-Smiths had been enjoying their current way of life for over six
years now and for that entire period it had been Lady Millicent's custom to sleep until noon and spend
the afternoon playing the harpsichord and doing good works -- a regimen which she had adhered to with
the steadfastness which was, as Sir Harold had often told her, one of the more appealing aspects of her
character.
It was not, in Lady Millicent's opinion, the most impressive compliment she received from her husband
-- although she always acknowledged it with the graciousness which was also an appealing part of her
character. Steadfastness, in Lady Millicent's view, was one of the indispensable attributes of a Lady.
There was no virtue more fundamental than steadfastness -- not even the ability to play the harpsichord
with deftness and taste.
Today, however, on this bright September afternoon in 17--, Sir Harold was concerned with issues
that must, sadly, take precedence over all other considerations.
"It involves Volume, Millicent."
"Ah. Well...."
"And someone may be Preaching Against It."
"Well. In that case, Harold."
***


The first notes of Mr. William Tyler's new "mechanical contrivance" reached them when they were still
several streets from the address given in the news item that had brought this matter to Sir Harold's
attention. The tune was only a simple dance -- a bour├йe from a suite of elementary pieces by Mr.
Telemann -- but it was already forcing its way through the rumble of carriages, the shouts of workingmen,
and all the other street noises that normally created such a pleasant background for Sir Harold's thoughts
when he strolled through his city. By the time they were within two hundred yards of the machine, by Sir
Harold's estimate, the dance had been repeated five times without variation, and they were pushing
through a force that dominated everything around them. Circles of children and young people were
dancing as if they were being sprayed by fire hoses. Older people were walking around with their palms
clapped over their ears. Dazed faces were peering out of windows and street vendors and their
customers were trying to shout at each other through cupped hands. About a third of the people around
them seemed to be drifting toward the source of the sound as if they were being pulled toward a drain --
and another third seemed to be moving away from it as if they were being pushed by a gentle but
relentless wind.
The center of all this commotion was a modest three story house near the western corner of the
intersection mentioned in Mr. Wilberforce's weekly. A signboard advertising William Tyler, Mechanic