Having acquired in exge for an old house that had been theirs, his and hers, a radio or more properly radio station, Bloomsbury could now play "The Star-Spangled Banner," which he had always admired immoderately, on at of its finality, as often as he liked. It meant, to him, that everything was fiherefore he played it daily, 60 times between 6 and 10 a.m., 120 times between 12 noon and 7 p.m., and the whole night long except when, as was sometimes the case, he was talking.
Bloomsburys radio talks were of two kinds, called the first kind and the sed kind. The first sisted of singling out, for special notice, from among all the others, some particular word in the English language, aing it in a monotonous voice for as much as fifteen minutes, or a quarter-hour. The word thus singled out might be any word, the word heless for example. "heless," Bloomsbury said into the microphone, "heless, heless, heless, heless, heless, heless, heless." After this exposure to the glare of publispe the word would frequently disclose new properties, unsuspected qualities, although that was far from Bloomsburys iion. His iion, insofar as he may be said to have had one, was simply to put something "on the air."
The sed kind of radio talk which Bloomsbury provided was the ercial annou.
The Bloomsbury annous were perhaps not too similar to other annous broadcast during this period by other broadcasters. They were dissimilar chiefly in that they were addressed not to the mass of men but of course to her, she with whom he had lived in the house that was goraded for the radio). Frequently he would begin somewhat in this vein:
"Well, old girl" (he began), "here we are, me speaking into the tube, you lying on your back most likely, giving an ear, I dont doubt. Swell of you to tune me in. I remember the time you went walking without your shoes, what an evening! You were wearing, I recall, your dove-gray silk, with a flower hat, and you picked your way down the boulevard as daintily as a real lady. There were chestnuts on the ground, I believe; you plaihat they felt like rocks under your feet. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled in front of you, sweeping the chestnuts into the gutter with my hand. What an evening! You said I looked absurd, and a gentleman who assing iher dire, I remember he wore yellow spats with yellow shoes, smiled. The lady apanying him reached out to pat me on my head, but he grasped her arm and prevented her, and the knees of my trousers tore on a broken pla the pavement.
"Afterwards you treated me to a raspberry ice, calling for a saucer, which you placed, daintily, at your feet. I still recall the ess, after the hot work on the boulevard, and the way the raspberry stained my muzzle. I put my fa your hand, and your little glove came aink and sticky, sticky and pink. We were fortable there, in the ice cream parlor, we were pretty as a picture! Man and wife!
"Whe home, that evening, the street lights were just ing on, the is were just ing out. And you said that ime, if there were a ime, you would wear your shoes. Even if it killed you, you said. And I said I would always be there to sweep away the chestnuts, whatever happened, even if nothing happened. And you said most likely that was right. I always had been there, you said. Swell of you to notice that. I thought at the time that there robably no one more swell than you in the whole world, anywhere. And I wao tell you, but did not.
"And then,