Adventure stories; City and town life -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction
"I want to go to Piccadilly Circus now. Stop at the fountain," said
Edward Henry to his chauffeur. He gave the order somewhat defiantly,
because he was a little self-conscious in the new and gleaming suit,
and because he had an absurd idea that the chauffeur might guess that
he, a provincial from the Five Towns, was about to venture into West
End theatrical enterprise and sneer at him accordingly.
But the chauffeur merely touched his cap with an indifferent and lofty
gesture, as if to say:
"Be at ease. I have driven persons more moon-struck even than you.
Human eccentricity has long since ceased to surprise me."
The fountain in Piccadilly Circus was the gayest thing in London. It
mingled the fresh tinkling of water with the odour and flame of autumn
blossoms and the variegated colours of shawled women who passed their
lives on its margin engaged in the commerce of flowers. Edward Henry
bought an aster from a fine bold, red-cheeked, blowsy, dirty wench
with a baby in her arms, and left some change for the baby. He was in
a very tolerant and charitable mood, and could excuse the sins and the
stupidity of all mankind. He reflected forgivingly that Rose Euclid
and her friends had perhaps not displayed an abnormal fatuity in
discussing the name of the theatre before they had got the lease of
the site for it. Had not he himself bought all the option without
having even seen the site? The fact was that he had had no leisure in
his short royal career for such details as seeing the site. He was now
about to make good the omission.
It is a fact that as he turned northwards from Piccadilly Circus, to
the right of the County Fire Office, in order to spy out the land upon
which his theatre was to be built, he hesitated, under the delusion
that all the passers-by were staring at him! He felt just as he might
have felt had he been engaged upon some scheme nefarious. He even went
back and pretended to examine the windows of the County Fire
Office. Then, glancing self-consciously about, he discerned--not
unnaturally--the words "Regent Street" on a sign.
"There you are!" he murmured, with a thrill. "There you are! There's
obviously only one name for that theatre--'The Regent.' It's close to
Regent Street. No other theatre is called 'The Regent.' Nobody
before ever had the idea of 'Regent' as a name for a theatre. 'Muses'
indeed!... 'Intellectual'! ... 'The Regent Theatre'! How well it comes
off the tongue! It's a great name! It'll be the finest name of any
theatre in London! And it took yours truly to think of it!"
Then he smiled privately at his own weakness.... He too, like the
despised Rose, was baptizing the unborn! Still, he continued to dream
of the theatre, and began to picture to himself the ideal theatre.
He discovered that he had quite a number of startling ideas about
theatre-construction, based on his own experience as a playgoer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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