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.]
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.