[156][157] THE RADIATOR. A STUDY IN THE MODERN STYLE OF COLLOQUIAL FICTION. [Scene, the chamber of Mr. and Mrs. Ellston, in an apartment hotel. Time, three A. M. The silence of the night is unbroken, save by the regular breathing of the sleepers, until suddenly, from the steam radiator, bursts a sound like the discharge of a battery of forty-pound guns.] A. M. Mrs. E. (springing up in bed) Oh! eh? what is that? [Her husband moves uneasily in his sleep, but does not reply. The noise of the sledge-hammer score of the “Anvil Chorus” rings out from the radiator.] Mrs. E. George! George! Something is going to happen! Do wake up, or we shall be murdered in our sleep! Mr. E. (with mingled ferocity and amusement) There is small danger of anybody’s being murdered in his sleep, my dear, where you are. It’s only that confounded radiator; it’s always making some sort of an infernal tumult. It can’t do any harm. Mrs. E. But it will wake baby. Mr. E. Well, if it does, the nurse can get him to sleep again, I suppose. [158] [158] [From the room adjoining is heard a clattering din, as if all the kettles and pans in the house were being thrown violently across the floor.] Mrs. E. There! The nursery radiator has begun. I must go and get baby. Mr. E. Let baby alone. If the youngster will sleep, for heaven’s sake let him. The steam-pipes make noise enough for this time of night, one would think, without your taking the trouble to wake baby. Mrs. E. (with volumes of reproach in her tone) Your own little baby! You never loved him as his mother does. [The disturbances now assume the likeness to a thoroughly inebriated drum corps practising upon sheet-iron air-tight stoves.]
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