The City of Pleasure: A Fantasia on Modern Themes

by Arnold Bennett

The heart of the City, as I propose to reveal, was situated beneath the Storytellers’ Hall, near the northern end of the Central Way, on your left hand as you passed down from the north entrance-gates. The Storytellers’ Hall was an invention of Carpentaria’s—one of his best. Between two o’clock and four, between five o’clock and seven, and between half-past eight and closing-time you could pay sixpence to go into the Storytellers’ Hall and listen to a succession of American and Irish and English performers, whose sole business it was to sit in an armchair on the diminutive stage and tell funny stories. The entertainment consisted in nothing else. It was the simplest thing in the world, and yet one of the completest successes of the City. It was a success from the very first hour of its existence. The little hall was nearly always crowded, chiefly by men. One is bound to admit that women were not enchanted by it; either they laughed in the wrong places, or they turned to their husbands, sweethearts, uncles, nephews, at the end of the story, and asked if that really was the end of the story, and, if it was, would their husbands, sweethearts, uncles, nephews kindly explain the joke to them.

Well, the heart of the City was beneath that gay and mirthful structure. While storytellers told stories above the level of the ground, the most serious business of the City was being transacted a few feet away, below the level of the ground. Let me explain.

Take an average intelligent visitor to the City. He approaches, say, the northern entrance, and among the twenty patent turnstiles which confront him he chooses the nearest one that is empty. He puts a shilling on the iron table of the turnstile; an official in the livery of the City scrutinizes the coin to make sure that it is what it pretends to be, and then pushes it down a little hole. The shilling disappears—not only from the sight, but from the thoughts of the visitor.

It is a highly remarkable fact—as he squeezes through the turnstile he actually forgets all about his shilling, forgets it for evermore!

Yet shillings are being poured in a continuous stream into the mouth of that turnstile and into the mouths of scores of similar turnstiles, all day. What becomes of them? Surely this question ought to interest the average intelligent visitor! What becomes of them? The turnstiles won’t hold an unlimited number of shillings; nevertheless, shillings are falling into them eternally and they are never emptied; they are never even moved; they could not be moved, since they are imbedded in concrete. Here is a puzzle for the average intelligent visitor.

It will occur to anyone that when four hundred thousand people have each paid a shilling entrance, quite a nice little lot of money must have accumulated somewhere in the City by nightfall; for, besides the entrance shillings, there is the vast expenditure of the visitors after they have entered.

The nice little bit of money runs to the heart of the City. That is what the heart of the City is for; that is why it is called the heart.

Now, the heart was a long, wide, and low apartment, lighted by electricity, and lined with concrete. In the centre, its top level with the floor, was a huge safe, which by hydraulic power could be raised till its top was nearly level with the ceiling, and its doors bared to the persuasions of keys. Round about were large wooden tables, furnished with large and small balances, copper scoops, bags, and steel coffers. A few chairs completed the apparatus of the apartment.

The shillings of the clients of the City dropped through the mouths of the turnstiles right down to a small subterranean chamber, which could only be reached from a tunnel beneath each entrance. Thus, the officials in charge of the turnstiles had no control whatever over the coins once they had been slipped into the orifices. The coins were checked and collected by an entirely separate set of officials, who visited the underground chambers every three hours and brought back the booty, enclosed in coffers, in specially constructed insignificant-looking carriages, to the solitary door of the heart. And the door of the heart was by no means in the Central Way; it gave on a back entry running parallel to the Way and just wide enough to permit the passage of one carriage. The coffers were received, and receipted for, by an official of the heart, and handed by him into the interior. Neither he nor the collectors were ever allowed to enter the heart.

On the evening of the day of the secret interview between Juliette and Ilam, the inconspicuous door of the heart was guarded, not by its usual official, but by a tall Soudanese, and waiting close to him was an automobile with chauffeur on board. The automobile was one of several employed specially to transport the riches of the City to the head offices of the London and West-End Bank in King William Street. The journeys were made at night, twice a week, and the offices of the London and West-End were specially opened to receive the coin. Automobiles laden with vast wealth are less apt to be remarked when they travel at night.