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Last Love was also first love for Miss Osyth, music teacher. She was regarded as an angel by her pupil, Minnie (Minnie's universe was peopled with angels and fiends); but when, one night, a handsome, dark apostate came wounded to her door, she hailed her lord, she washed his wound, fell from her starched Paradise into heavenly, purgatory. In short, she let him kiss her. Called away by the death of one of her uncles, she came back to find him kissing Minnie.
Nine O'Clock Tomorrow was the time she said. Mysteriously she came to Raphael Field, fared artist, when he was a young man. Now Raphael Field is old. His unfinished portrait of her will bring a couple of thousand pounds at Christie's. He lives alone; each night he dines forlornly at his club. She said she'd come back, at "nine o'clock tomorrow" for her second and last sitting. She never came.
The Yacht is the scene of certain things that occur for the reason that, on a small yacht, everybody can hear everything.
The Perfect Creature loved by great artists, famed composers, married a young and stupid chemical engineer.
The Fish was an actor who, despite the enthusiasm of thousands who paid to see him disport himself in a drawing room with only three sides to it, could not make much of a figure in one with the usual number of walls.
The Significance. Mr. Bennett once wrote a book called Things That Have Interested Me. That title was a quip, for everything interests Mr. Bennett. He sees a shining saucepan, a sleek yacht, a sorry little woman ; he thinks : "Who scrubbed it? Where is it going? Has anyone ever loved her?" So, doubtless, think others, but Mr. Bennett goes to the trouble of finding out. He knows how servants think, how yachts run, how music teadiers meet their fate. He wears a duster on his helmet; he is the knight of Curiosity. More than that he is one of those simple ones who remember that we are all Heaven's creatures.
The Author. Enoch Arnold Bennett grew up among the potteries of Staffordshire. He has a most amiable disposition, a French wife, a steam yacht.
Pocket Amenities