The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Regent, by E. Arnold Bennett

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Title: The Regent

Author: E. Arnold Bennett

Release Date: June 14, 2004 [EBook #12611]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE REGENT

A FIVE TOWNS STORY OF ADVENTURE IN LONDON

BY

ARNOLD BENNETT

1913

CONTENTS

PART I

CHAPTER

I. DOG-BITE.
II. THE BANK-NOTE
III. WILKINS'S
IV. ENTRY INTO THE THEATRICAL WORLD
V. MR SACHS TALKS
VI. LORD WOLDO AND LADY WOLDO

PART II

CHAPTER

VII. CORNER-STONE
VIII. DEALING WITH ELSIE
IX. THE FIRST NIGHT
X. ISABEL

THE REGENT

PART I

CHAPTER I

DOG-BITE

I

"And yet," Edward Henry Machin reflected as at six minutes to six
he approached his own dwelling at the top of Bleakridge, "and yet--I
don't feel so jolly after all!"

The first two words of this disturbing meditation had reference to the
fact that, by telephoning twice to his stockbrokers at Manchester,
he had just made the sum of three hundred and forty-one pounds in a
purely speculative transaction concerning Rubber Shares. (It was in
the autumn of the great gambling year, 1910.) He had simply opened his
lucky and wise mouth at the proper moment, and the money, like ripe,
golden fruit, had fallen into it, a gift from benign heaven, surely
a cause for happiness! And yet--he did not feel so jolly! He was
surprised, he was even a little hurt, to discover by introspection
that monetary gain was not necessarily accompanied by felicity.
Nevertheless, this very successful man of the world of the Five Towns,
having been born on the 27th of May 1867, had reached the age of
forty-three and a half years!

"I must be getting older," he reflected.

He was right. He was still young, as every man of forty-three will
agree, but he was getting older. A few years ago a windfall of three
hundred and forty-one pounds would not have been followed by morbid
self-analysis; it would have been followed by unreasoning, instinctive
elation, which elation would have e