[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.]
Mr. E. Of all unendurable rackets—
[A sudden and sharp boom interrupts him. Mrs. Ellston screams, while her husband indulges in language which, although somewhat inexcusably forcible, is yet to be regarded as not unnatural under the circumstances.]
Mrs. E. Oh, George, don’t swear. It always seems so much worse to swear in danger; like tempting Providence; and I know there’s going to be an explosion!
Mr. E. (severely) Don’t talk nonsense! The engineer has gone to sleep and left the drafts open, that’s all. Don’t be so absurd.
[There is another fusillade from the radiator, reinforced by the reverberations from the nursery, where a regiment of artillery seem to have begun target practice.]