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

instrument proper. Then, once inside the instrument...
"I found that if I pinched the pipe in the middle, like that... I had a lot of trouble designing joints that
would stand up to the kind of pressure I'm talking about here, but...."
Sir Harold nodded wisely and produced properly timed head shakes and other gestures of amazed
appreciation. The high pressure water system had been one of his most important alterations and he had
known when he arranged it that it had implications that went beyond daily showers and other amenities.
He hadn't realized it could be used to bring Volume into his surroundings -- he had thought that required
electricity -- but he wasn't particularly surprised either. If a system as logical as a series of pipes and
valves could logically be used to do something, then some human mind would eventually work through all
the reasoning involved and come to the inevitable conclusion. It was even more likely someone would do
the necessary intellectual work, furthermore, when the end result was something human beings valued as
much as they seemed to value Volume.
The London Sir Harold lived in -- his London -- was not, of course, the London you may read about
in certain dreary books. In Sir Harold's London, the German composer Johann Sebastian Bach
frequently crossed the English Channel -- at the invitation of his good friend George Friedrich Handel --
and personally staged performances of his works which invariably sent him home with his ears ringing
with popular acclaim and his purse well stuffed with good English gold. The six concertos Herr Bach had
composed for the Margrave of Brandenburg did not languish unplayed in the Margrave's library but were
performed almost weekly by some of the finest instrumentalists in the city, many of whom received their
fees from Sir Harold himself. There had even been two occasions on which the German composer's great
mass in the key of B minor had been performed in Westminster Abbey, with the composer himself
conducting and several hundred perfectly respectable citizens camping outside the church for a week in
advance to make sure they would be permitted to squeeze into a pew.
As Sir Harold was well aware, it was a milieu which existed--like all good places--In Spite Of and
Because Of. No one had to tell him there were Europes in which Herr Bach's mass had also sat
unperformed for many decades and Londons where the music of Buxtehude and Couperin was not a
normal part of daily life. There were even Londons in which the streets were dirty, horses created
horrible traffic jams, and honest workingmen didn't live in neat, clean houses and whistle bits from
Messiah and Judas Maccabaeus as they laid bricks, painted gates, and arranged their wares in tidy shops
furnished with good clean running water. Those places existed. They were real. They were always there,
on the edge of things, like water lapping at the dike, or wolves circling the fire.
Outside the pulpiteer was still preaching, but Mr. Tyler was so engrossed in his dissertation he
apparently didn't hear the angry voice denouncing his marvelous work. Sir Harold, however, could hear
voices demanding that the "music" should begin again, and other voices, equally angry, taking the other
side of the matter. Lady Millicent gave him an anxious look from her position near the edge of the
window and he managed to excuse himself for a moment and take her aside.
"Do you think you could step to the door, Millicent, and send a messenger to the Musicians' Guild?"
Lady Millicent straightened her back. "If you think it's necessary, Harold."
Sir Harold removed a pen and pad from his waistcoat and hastily scribbled a note. From her seat near
the fireplace, Mr. Tyler's daughter was eyeing the keyboard with obvious restlessness.
"I'm afraid it's unavoidable, Millicent. You can explain to the people outside that the device is silent
right now because Mr. Tyler is explaining its working to a gentleman who may be able to do him some
service."
Sir Harold returned to Mr. Tyler's lecture and Lady Millicent picked her way down the stairs and
confronted the crowd that had shifted to Mr. Tyler's private door. A few people surged forward when
the door opened but they came to a halt as soon as they saw who was standing there.
"I would appreciate it very much if I could have the services of a messenger," Lady Millicent said. "Is
there anyone here who would care to earn an easy shilling?"
Two boys and a slight, bright-eyed man in his middle twenties raised their hands and started pushing
forward. Lady Millicent pointed to the young man and then silenced one of the boys, before he could