Cities and towns -- Growth -- Fiction; Wales -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
The Kursaal lay behind the two frontages of Gardd and Pontnewydd
Streets, and it could be reached from either thoroughfare. From Gardd
Street, up another short street, the great lighted semicircle of what
was then its Main Entrance could be seen; and if the minor entrance from
Pontnewydd Street was at that time less resplendent, that was because
the Kerrs' Hafod stood in the way of opening it up. With its grounds and
theatre and vast dancing-hall, the Kursaal covered getting on for an
eighth of a square mile; but a third or more of that was still in
progress of being laid out and planted--once more by Philip Lacey.
Crossing the Promenade to the less crowded pavement beyond, John Willie
and Percy strode the half-mile to the Kursaal. There was a queue about
the turnstiles, but John Willie made a sign to an attendant, who flung
up the Exit Only barrier. They passed under trees with many-coloured
electric lights among the branches, and the slowly turning Big Wheel,
which made a quarter-arch of lights over the tower of the Central Hall,
dipped behind it again as they reached the steps that led to the
vestibule.
For size alone, apart from any other consideration, the dancing-hall of
the Llanyglo Kursaal is one of the wonders of the North. It cost a
hundred thousand pounds to build, and since it can dance a thousand
couples, to seek anybody there without going up into the balconies is
like looking for a needle in a bottle of hay. The band was not playing
at the moment when Percy and John Willie entered; but before they had
reached the top of an empty half-lighted series of staircases the
distant strains of a Barn Dance had broken out. Then, with the pushing
at a door, it burst loudly upon them. John Willie strode down the
shallow gallery steps, made for a front seat whence he could see the
whole length of the vast oblong below, spread out his elbows and set his
chin on his wrists, and, once more muttering "You go and get your drink
if you want," began to search the hall with gloomy blue eyes, very much
as a boy flashes a bit of looking-glass hither and thither in the sun.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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