From the day
Perspective: The Anxious Local · Sound
The tinny screech of the gramophone is playing "Put On Your Old Grey Bonnet" for the tenth time today, and I swear that upbeat tune will be the death of me while the papers scream of Russian ambassadors and Italian scandals. I stepped out for a five-cent loaf of bread, but the rattling of these new motor carriages and the sharp *crack* of those gun silencers everyone’s whispering about has me jumpy as a cat. I try to tell myself I’m fit as a fiddle, but between the gossip of recalls in the Far East and the price of coal rising, my nerves are frayed thin. I’ll just stay in, shuffle my deck of Rook cards, and try to drown out the city's frantic clatter.