Okay, so hi, I'm Ralph from Keysight Technologies. I'm a software developer and I'm here to introduce to you OpenTab, which is an open source test automation project we have been working on. It was just released as open source last May, so we are really excited to get to present this system to you. It's based on a test and measurement sequencer and the libraries associated with it. So I'll just quickly explain what is OpenTab and then go through a short demo afterwards. So as I said, I work at Keysight Technologies and this OpenTab is one of the first software projects that are open source that we're doing. So Keysight Technologies is an electronics test and measurement company and some of our products are these instruments you see out here to the right. It's measurement equipment and of course that includes some software component as well. So you really need to control these instruments and that's where you need a test sequencer basically to set up your tests. So our ambition is really to create the best test and measurement solutions. So to have that we believe you need the best hardware and you need the best software and we strongly believe that parts of having the best software is embracing the open source concept wherever you know when it kind of makes sense and we believe that OpenTab is a project where it really makes good sense to do open source. So we have identified something we call the Automation Challenge and it's something we noticed nine years ago when we actually started this test sequencer project and the thing is that the ecosystem of test sequencers is split between homegrown solutions and proprietary solutions and so the homegrown solutions have the problem that they're often very costly or very error prone. You can have maybe very cheap software if it includes a lot of box or a very expensive software it is absolutely not acceptable to have any box. And then you have the proprietary hardware software that kind of forces you into this vendor login situation where you're not maybe able to extend this with new hardware and new devices and you also have the problem that if the vendor stops maintaining it you're pretty much lost if you need some box repaired. So what we saw was and this also actually applied to our own company is that often companies start making new test solutions that are all very similar. It has the same kind of GUIs, the same kind of device drivers, the same kind of logging and result capabilities and that's really not what we thought was a very good situation and so what we wanted is to help people kind of leverage the work of others and kind of to help those people who have one specific device they're working with that they can just kind of focus on that, be the experts on that device. So our goal is to make test and measurement automation effortless and we have some ideals that it kind of applies to all software I think but for OpenTab especially it's simplicity if you don't really need it it shouldn't be in your way and that comes into that we have a modular architecture that kind of handles this and the same goes for the scalability it should be lightweight and integrate well with other things you should be able to fire it up in a docker container you know run it on an Android phone or you know a desktop computer or what have you and then lastly speed is very important for tests and I mean if you're doing manufacturing you need to make sure that the test goes as fast as possible and of course also a very important thing is the speed of development how many man hours do you need. So what is OpenTab? OpenTab is really based around a test sequencer so it's a software right. It has a kind of modular a very modular actually plug-in architecture that allows you to kind of extend many aspects of it with the custom code it's developer friendly and that's very important right because we want people to develop plugins for this so we really develop this with a developer first mindset it's a growing community and these over here you see are some of the people who are involved and you know people who are interested in doing tests in the best way right and so it's based on .NET standard which is the open source .NET runtime from Microsoft and it supports we support Windows and Linux and it's open source under the MPLv2 license and it has you know we use the open core kind of you know strategy so you know OpenTab is open source and we have some proprietary software as well that you can get but we also have a lot of like open source plugins for it that you can use and in this demo and in this talk today I will only be talking about the open source stuff all this so yeah so I'm really excited about this software because I have I have you know I've been developing test solutions myself and I really you know enjoy having to work with some software that is developed with the developer friendly mindset yeah and actually also it kind of you know we started coming to Fustum a couple of years ago and Fustum was also one of the things that kind of inspired us to start you know looking at an open source solution to this so what's a test sequencer? A test sequencer is a piece of software that can be used to create, modify and run a sequence of test steps so some important concepts here are a test plan which is a sequence of test steps right at the test steps themselves which encapsulate some piece of functionality it could be a measurement or some hardware control it's also important you know have to read some resources you have your devices under tests dots you have your measurement instruments you have your result listeners for processing and storing results yeah so and up here in the corner we will kind of talk more about that but that's that's to show you kind of the it's kind of a modular architecture right and here you know it's just a picture of you know that you know the test steps themselves they are up in the corner and you know those are like plugins you put into the system to build your solution okay so test steps and test plans so test steps are like the atoms of OpenTap it's really how you kind of build your test sequence so as I said test steps encapsulate some functionality they have some settings like you know which frequency are you measuring or something like that and they sometimes use resources if it's a measurement they use resources or if they control some piece of hardware and they can also have child steps so it's kind of a recursive system right steps can have child steps kind of child steps and yeah so they are all inside this test plan which is a sequence of test steps and they the test plan kind of manages the you know control you when to connect to instruments and disconnect and so forth and on the right side here you see just an example of some test steps you know you have some hierarchies and stuff going on so we talk a bit about test execution flow just to explain a bit how these things work so here you have like this kind of very simple test plan of free test steps that we just want to run after each other and so first the test plan will kind of figure out which are the required resources for this test plan and then it will open those or connect to them it depends a bit on what kind of instrument like is it a you know it's an SQL database you want to publish results to or is it like a USB device or something like that you know it takes some time to open your resources and that's why this kind of happens in parallel then you come to your test execution phase where you run all the steps here in sequence and finally you close all the resources that we're using and so this all these flow things we have here they can actually be modified by as and so just to be clear so this here or here marks kind of the end of the test plan run right and so but all these flow things can actually be modified by plugins you can make a plugin that makes you know the only the resources associated to a specific step that it only opens before the step runs and after the step closes like if you have a very long running test plan maybe you don't want to take up the resources for the whole length of the test plan to more finally control it and that can be done using plugins yes then we have some results results are very important this could just be so results comes from test steps and this could just be a verdict like a pass or fail or it could be the results of some measurements here I'm showing just some the measurements that I'm making in the demo later or it could be a simple log message so we have I guess this message passing system with some specific rules for how to how results flow through the system to kind of make sure that results are processed in the most optimal way and not kind of blocking the test plan execution time but kind of it's shipped away on different threads to process that as efficiently as possible okay so this slide here is kind of the core idea of OpenTap you can say you can see all these so OpenTap is actually being developed in Denmark that's why we use all these Lego bricks so but it's kind of the metaphor right so if you look at the like you have to test the plugins you have your resource plugins you have your user interfaces and your result listener plugins all different kind of parts of the system right and you can see the different colors bricks are kind of the different plugins you can have and the color they have this has no really not really any significance yeah so an important thing here is like how does the different parts communicate so you can see the user interface that's an arrow going to the OpenTap brick right and that's because that kind of communication is isolated and that's also for the result listener plugins that's also kind of isolated that communication so there's no direct communication between the test steps and the result listeners for example so the results are kind of so that's kind of encapsulated but then if you look at the test step plugins and the resource plugins you can see this arrow here and that's because like test steps talk directly to instruments for example and then we have some plugins that kind of fall out of the category you know like a Python plugin we have like a Python plugin kind of allows you to implement all the other kinds of plugins but instead of in C sharp you can now implement them in Python okay so you take these bricks and you kind of put them together and then you kind of create your solution so your plugin you probably have some code that you need because maybe you know how to control your device or your instrument or maybe you just have some special things you need it could also be just a special kinds of results you want a special database you want to store your results in or something like that so that this is kind of the idea right you put together your solution and then you can find a lot of bricks for your solution at the packages.OpenTab.io this is our main package repository and so if you go and develop your own plugins you can also get it into this repository and share it with people so it's just like you know a package manager just for tab okay so then I'll go through a couple of cases of things that have been developed with OpenTab so here's something called the triangle project which is an EU project that uses OpenTab to do a benchmark on phones so you kind of connect your phone and you can run some tests that tries to figure out the performance characteristics of this phone and give it like a rating so this is a very good phone or is it a bad phone so things that you know you can measure like battery drain and UI frame rate and stuff like that and so the thing that Tab does is control this sequence of test steps that tells the dot to maybe start or maybe it tells an instrument to start measuring the current drain of the phone or something like that and then in the meantime go to YouTube and watch a video and see how that affects the battery drain and things like that is what this kind of project has been doing and I think yeah so it's kind of a very complex scenario where you have a very complex system that you're trying to measure some of these parameters on and down here you can see this is just to show this is kind of a solution with your bricks so then we have another thing is Web API tester and that's something that's under development and it's a plugin for testing HTTP APIs like RISC so you can make a test plan that then sends some RISC requests to the server and that's just test steps for OpenTab just test a plugin to put in write your URL and your endpoint and then you can get the data back and you know to try to figure out you make a script that basically says this was the expected result and the GUI you see here is our open source text-based UI and I think it looks old school but it's quite convenient because it's really fast and it's also if you have like a docker running you can SSH into it and open this GUI and look at your test plans and so this is a pretty simple solution with only like four basic components here and then finally we have the subject of our demo which is a little like a hardware device called Pocket Science Lab developed by Open Source hardware that's developed by FOSSAsia and it has some simple oscilloscopes and waveform generator things on it and we thought it would be fun we saw it last year here in Fossdom and talked to the people and we thought it would be fun to kind of use it for our demo and so what we are going to do is well I forgot to find the thing actually okay so what we'll do is connect the wave generator to the oscilloscope channel 1 and channel 2 and then we'll connect it to the PC and then we'll do some of these we'll try to do like a frequency sweep and a phase sweep on the wave generator and see what happens so yeah I'll just find the device because I forgot to take it out of my backpack yeah so here it is I'll connect these first yeah okay sorry about that and there we go so I have if you can see my screen okay it's pretty small here I have some code basically it's a class that implements a test tab in the open tab and I will just compile it I have this in there so this this project here like a C sharp project and a python project and it contains the driver for the instrument and some test steps to do some measurements on the instrument and yeah so so now I compiled it and the project itself includes the open tab nugget package which means that open tab gets deployed into my debug folder here so you can see if I do a I don't know if you've been I think it's okay this is my debug folder I have tab.exe here that's how you're basically your entry point to open tab and then I have the pslcs test which is the DLL that contains my plugins but I need some kind of graphical user interface to create a test plan so I'll just install the Tui okay and then I also need so now I've installed the user interface and then I also need a sv file for saving results so I'll also install that plugin and then sql light and sql like that okay so now we want to create our test plan I'll open up the user interface this is like the old school one I'm using you also have like you know some like an editor like you can download that community edition editor if you want and then I'll create my test plan so I'll just create a sign setup sign generator step that sets up the like sign waves on the generator and you can see over here on the settings we need an instrument and set up the channel and the frequency and channel the channel is fine so I'll just call this like a thousand hertz and then I'll go and add the instrument here so now we have this instrument in our instrument settings oh and then I will also go and add the results csv database sql light database and you can see the settings for those okay and then I just need to go and configure this okay so now this step is configured but we also need to configure something so I'll add the measure samples step and the measure sample step you know it's just like measures on samples with the oscilloscope basic stuff symbol tap plan okay I quit here alright so now I'll just use the cli to run the test plan so I'll just like this I don't need it right now okay so yeah so you can see it ran the test plan this is just a log file and the results that the csv file result is now saving is inside this result folder so just write this trace like that fire up excel you can use whatever you want and I'll just like plot this scalar chart so yeah that looks like what you'd expect from like a sine wave 10,000 samples so let's try to create something a bit more advanced I'll open up my test plan again here and let's create a new test step so we'll use one of the things from open type itself which is the sweep loop this is essentially just a plugin from the basic steps so sweep loop can sweep across a property that's a setting so when I add and so I have this step called measure rms voltage that I'll put into the sweep loop as a child step and the measure rms voltage will measure rms voltage on the you know the oscilloscope and set the frequency on the generator and it's a kind of assume that those two are connected and so these are the settings for this step so I'll go to the sweep that was actually the that was the wrong sweep loop I added we can do that in another demo sweep loop range it's a bit simpler to explain what goes on there okay so then I select for sweep loop range I will select sweep frequency as a parameter and let's start at 100 hertz and finish at because this device in the specs it says that it goes up to 5000 hertz so let's just test that it also that it works at that level okay looks good and we'll save it and go to the command line again and then run it so now we're sweeping across frequencies you can see the hertz out here we've done an exponential sweep but I think this gets the point of course okay then we can look at the results again insert scatter chart okay so what we have here is the RMS voltage at all the different frequencies and you can see here around 5000 it kind of starts trailing off right so the the output of the generator starts to go down as we exceed the limit of the generator and so you can say maybe you could kind of calibrate that out to boost the signal or something but we also don't know if there's any distortion going on or something like that so that would be another another test you would make okay so another thing I have you just maybe delete these two so I also have something that can measure the difference in the phases because actually there's two generators and two oscilloscopes so if we just connect those together we can try to sweep the phase of the generators because the generators are kind of locked in phase but you can kind of decide how much you want to shift the phase so let's just add this one again sweep blue brains and now we'll sweep the phase and we'll sweep from 0 to 360 it's 30 degrees and it will do just 13 points so we have a step size of 30 and we're measuring 0 and 360 so it actually remain that measurement twice and then I'll publish this yes let's try to run so we can go and look at the results again difference rms I think and there you can see so I'm subtracting the two signals from each other and so you can see when the phase is 0 they are exactly on top of each other there's 0 voltage difference between them and then when the phase is 180 here there is 100% phase difference between them and you get a peak that's around 4.4 volts so those are some of the basic things you can do so another thing is for example the REST API plugin you could just put in the REST test it instead to test your web server for example and then it's not similar to using postman or something like that you can set up your requests but then the nice thing is that we have the CLI tool so you can just run your test plan so maybe a quick last thing we have these community addition tools here that you can also use as part of a product we have tab editor open so here you can see the same test plan that we had before just in a different style of GUI but then we can open the remember I attached the SQLite database anyone can really use that so here are the results from the different runs we had and it's pretty convenient but then you can go and see the results from the test plan they look like this this is the phase difference we saw if you go to that's the voltage difference but then this is also a bit interesting I think if you split this on the phase maybe we'll check the line chart here this seems to be a bit of an error but then you can see we've got like a completely correlation between the voltages on both axes they are completely correlated and then as the phase moves towards it gets like elliptical and then as the phase moves towards like 180 degrees it kind of turns into an ellipsis that turns on the a line that what do you call it 90 degrees compared to it this here is at 45 degrees or 230 just a little curiosity I like this chart I'm not sure it's actually useful for anything I just like looking at it that's my demo basically so thank you for your attention here's some info commenters if you're interested commenters in building K we have a stand up in the like close to the like back entrance and if someone of you is really interested in OpenTab and test automation we have this developer camp in September you can come and talk to if that's of interest thanks


CHAPTER VII On a morning in spring Edward Henry got out of an express at Euston, which had come not from the five towns, but from Birmingham. Having on the previous day been called to Birmingham on local and profitable business, he had found it convenient to spend the night there, and telegraph home that London had summoned him. It was in this unostentatious, this half-fertive fashion that his visits to London now usually occurred. Not that he was afraid of his wife. Not that he was afraid even of his mother. Oh, no! He was merely rather afraid of himself. Of his own opinion concerning the metropolitan, non-local, speculative, and perhaps unprofitable business to which he was committed. The fact was that he could scarcely look his women in the face when he mentioned London. He spoke vaguely of real estate enterprise, and left it at that. The women made no inquiries. They too left it at that. Nevertheless. The episode of Wilkins was buried, but it was imperfectly buried. The five towns definitely knew that he had stayed at Wilkins for a bit, and that Brindley had discharged the bit.  Wisps of this strange vapour had conceivably entered the precincts of his home, but nobody ever referred to them. Nobody ever sniffed apprehensively, nor asked anybody else whether there was not a smell of fire. The discreetness of the silence was disconcerting. Happily his relations with that angel his wife were excellent. She had carried angelicism so far as not to insist on the destruction of Carlo, and she had actually applauded, while sticking to her white apron, the sudden and startling extravagances of his toilet. On the whole, though little short of thirty-five thousand pounds would ultimately be involved, not to speak of a liability of nearly three thousand a year, for sixty-four years for ground rent, Edward Henry was not entirely gloomy as to his prospects. He was, indubitably, thinner in girth. Novel problems and anxieties and the constant annoyance of being in complete technical ignorance of his job had removed some flesh, and not a bad thing either. But on the other hand his chin exhibited one proof that life was worth living, and that he had discovered new faith in life, and a new conviction of youthfulness. He had shaved off his beard. Well, sir! A voice greeted him full of hope and cheer. Immediately his feet touched the platform. It was the voice of Mr. Marrier. Edward Henry and Mr. Marrier were now in regular relations. Before Edward Henry had paid his final bill at Wilkins, and relinquished his valet and his electric broom, and disposed for ever of his mythical man on board the Minnetonka, and got his original luggage away from the Hotel Majestic, Mr. Marrier had visited him, and made a certain proposition. And such was the influence of Mr. Marrier's incurable smile, and of his solid optimism, and of his obvious talent for getting things done on the spot, as witnessed the photography, that the proposition had been accepted. Mr. Marrier was now Edward Henry's representative in London. At the Green Room Club Mr. Marrier informed reliable cronies that he was Edward Henry's confidential adviser. At the Turks Head Handbridge Edward Henry informed reliable cronies that Mr. Marrier was a sort of clerk, a factotum, or made-of-all-work. A compromise between these two very different conceptions of Mr. Marrier's position had been arrived at in the word representative. The real truth was that Edward Henry employed Mr. Marrier in order to listen to Mr. Marrier. He turned on Mr. Marrier like a tap, and nourished himself from a gushing stream of useful information concerning the theatrical world. Mr. Marrier quite unconsciously was bit by bit remedying Edward Henry's acute ignorance. The question of wages had caused Edward Henry some apprehensions. He had learnt in a couple of days that a hundred pounds a week was a trifle on the stage. He had soon heard of performers who worked for nominal salaries of forty and fifty a week. For a manager twenty pounds a week seemed to be a usual figure. But in the five towns three pounds a week is regarded as very goodish pay for any subordinate. An Edward Henry could not rid himself all at once of native standards. He had therefore with diffidence offered three pounds a week to the aristocratic Marrier. And Mr. Marrier had not refused it, nor ceased to smile. On three pounds a week he haunted the best restaurants, taxicabs, and other resorts, and his garb seemed always to be smarter than Edward Henry's, especially in such details as waistcoat slips. Of course Mr. Marrier had a taxicab, waiting exactly opposite the coach from which Edward Henry descended. It was just this kind of efficient attention, but was gradually endearing him to his employer. How goes it? said Edward Henry, curtly, as they drove down by the Grand Babylon Hotel, now Edward Henry's regular headquarters in London. Said Mr. Marrier, I suppose you've seen another of them's got a knighthood. No, said Edward Henry, who? He knew that by—um—Mr. Marrier meant the great race of actor-managers. Gerald Pompey, something to do with him being a sheriff in the city, you know. I bet you what you like, he went in for the common counsel simply in order to get even with old pilgrim. In fact, I know he did, and now a foundation stone-laying has done it. A foundation stone-laying? Yes, the new city guild's building, you know. Royalty, temple bar business, sheriffs, knighthood—there you are. Oh! said Edward Henry. And then, after a pause, added, Pity, we can't have a foundation stone-laying. By the way, old pilgrims, in the deuce and all of a hell, are here. It's all over the clubs. In speaking of the clubs, Mr. Marrier always pronounced them with the capital letter. I told you he was going to sail from Tilbury on his world tour and have a grand embarking ceremony and seeing all—just like him—greatest to advertise that the world ever saw. Well, since that P&O boat was lost on the Goodwinds, Cora Pride has absolutely declined to sail from Tilbury. And so, literally, swear she'll join the steamer at Marseille. And Pilgrim has got to go with her, too. Why? Well, even Pilgrim couldn't have a grand embarking ceremony without his leading lady. He's furious, I hear. Why shouldn't he go with her? Why not? Because he's formally announced his grand embarking ceremony. Invitations are out, barge from London Bridge to Tilbury and so on. What he wants is a good excuse for giving it out. He'd never be able to admit that he'd had to give it up, because Cora Pride made him. He wants to save his face. Well, said Edward Henry, absently, it's a queer world. You got me a room at the Grand Bab? Rather! Then let's go and have a look at the region first, said Edward Henry. No sooner had he expressed the wish than Mr. Maria's neck curved round through the window, and with three words to the chauffeur, he had deflected the course of the taxi. Edward Henry had an almost boyish curiosity about his edifice. He would go and give it a glance at the oddest moments, and just now he had a swift and violent desire to behold it. With all speed the taxi shot down Shaftesbury Avenue and swerved to the right. There it was. Yes, it really existed, the incredible edifice of his caprice and of Mr. Alloid's constructive imagination. It had already reached a height of fifteen feet, and dozens of yards above that, cranes dominated the sunlit air, swinging loads of bricks in the azure, and scores of workmen crawled about beneath these monsters. And he, Edward Henry, by a single act of volition, was the author of it. He slipped from the taxi, penetrated within the wall of hoardings, and gazed, just gazed. A wondrous thing, human enterprise, and also a terrifying thing. That building might be the tomb of his reputation. On the other hand it might be the seed of a new renown, compared to which the first would be as nought. He turned his eyes away in fear. Yes, in fear. I say, he said, Will Sir John Pilgrim be out of bed yet, do you think? He glanced at his watch. The hour was about eleven. He'll be at his pick first. I'm going to see him then. What's his address? Twenty-five Queen Anne's Gate. But you know him. I do. Shall I come with you? No, said Edward Henry shortly.  I'll see you in my room at the hotel at a quarter to one, eh? Rather! agreed Mr. Marrier, submissive. Two. Soul proprietor of the Regent Theatre. These were the words which Edward Henry wrote on a visiting card, and which procured him immediate admittance to the unique spectacle, reputed to be one of the most enthralling sights in London, of Sir John Pilgrim at breakfast. In a very spacious front room of his flat, so celebrated for its goblins tapestries and its truly wonderful parquet flooring, sat Sir John Pilgrim at a large hexagonal mahogany table. At one side of the table a small square of white dipper was arranged, and on this square were an apparatus for boiling eggs, another for making toast, and a third for making coffee. Sir John, with the assistance of a young Chinaman and a Fox Terrier who flitted around him, was indeed eating and drinking. The vast remainder of the table was gleamingly bare, save for newspapers and letters, opened and unopened, which Sir John tossed about.  Sir John's crimson-socked left foot stuck out from the table, emerging from the left half of a lovely new pair of brown trousers, and resting on a piece of white paper. Before this white paper knelt a man in a frock coat, who was drawing an outline on the paper round Sir John's foot.  Sir John was saying eerily. Yes, Sir John. Excuse me, said Sir John. I only wanted to be sure. I fancied from the way you caressed my corn with that pencil, that you might be an artist on one of the illustrated papers. My mistake. He was bending down. Then suddenly straightening himself, he called across the room. I say, givington, did you notice my pose then, my expression as I used the word caressed? How would that do? An Edward Henry now observed, in a corner of the room, a man standing in front of an easel and sketching somewhat grossly thereon in charcoal. This man said, If you won't bother me, Sir John, I won't bother you. Ah, givington, ah, givington! murmured Sir John, still more eerily. At breakfast he was either airy or nothing. You're getting on in the world. You aren't million, are you? You're making money. A year ago you'd never have had the courage to address me in that tone. Well, I sincerely congratulate you. Here, Snip, here's my dentist bill. Worry it, worry it. Good dog, worry it. The dog growled now over a torn document beneath the table. Oh, Miss Taft, you might see that a communique goes out to the effect that I gave my first sitting to Mr Saracen givington, A-R-A, this morning. The activities of Mr Saracen givington are of interest to the world, and rightly so. You'd better come round to the other side for the right foot, Mr Bootmaker. The journey is simply nothing. And then, and not till then, did Sir John Pilgrim turn his large and handsome middle-aged blond face in the direction of Alderman Edward Henry Machin? Pardon my curiosity, said Sir John, but who are you? My name is Machin. Alderman Machin, said Edward Henry.  Sir John exclaimed, seating an egg. Will you crack an egg with me, Alderman? I can crack an egg with anybody. Thanks! said Edward Henry. I'll be very glad to. And he advanced towards the table. Sir John hesitated. The fact was that, though he dissembled his dismay with marked history on its skill, he was unquestionably overwhelmed by astonishment. In the course of years he had airily invited hundreds of callers to crack an egg with him. The joke was one of his favourites, but nobody had ever ventured to accept the invitation. A chunk? he said weakly. Lay a cover for the Alderman. Edward Henry sat down quite close to Sir John. He could discern all the details of Sir John's face and costume. The tremendous celebrity was wearing a lounge suit, somewhat like his own, but instead of the coat, he had a blue dressing-jacket with crimson facings. The sleeves ended in rather long wristbands, which were unfastened. The opal cufflinks drooping each from a single hole. Perhaps for the first time in his life, Edward Henry intimately understood what idiosyncratic elegance was. He could almost feel the emanating personality of Sir John Pilgrim, and he was intimidated by it. He was intimidated by its hardness, its harshness, its terrific egotism, its utterly brazen quality.  It knew no reticence. And Edward Henry thought, When this chap dies, he'll want to die in public with the reporters round his bed and the private secretary taking down messages. This is rather a lark, said Sir John, recovering. It is, said Edward Henry, who now felicitously perceived that a lark it indeed was, and ought to be treated as such. It shall be a lark, he said to himself. Sir John dictated a letter to Miss Taft, and before the letter was finished the grinning chong had laid a place for Edward Henry, and Snip had inspected him and passed him for one of the right sort. Had I said that this is rather a lark, Sir John inquired, the letter accomplished? I forget, said Edward Henry, because I don't like to say the same thing twice over if I can help it. It is a lark, though, isn't it? Undoubtedly, said Edward Henry, decapitating an egg, I only hope that I'm not interrupting you. Not in the least, said Sir John. Breakfast is my soul-free time. In another half-hour I assure you I shall be attending to three or four things at once. He leant over towards Edward Henry, but between you and me, Alderman, quite privately, if it isn't a rude question, what did you come for? Well, said Edward Henry, as I wrote on my card, I'm the sole proprietor of the Regent Theatre. But there is no Regent Theatre! Sir John interrupted him. No, not strictly, but there will be. It's in course of construction. We're up to the first floor. Dear me, a suburban theatre, no doubt. Do you mean to say, Sir John, cried Edward Henry, that you haven't noticed it? It's within a few yards of Piccadilly Circus. Really? said Sir John. You see, my theatre is in Lower Regent Street, and I never go to Piccadilly Circus. I make a point of not going to Piccadilly Circus. Miss Taft, how long is it since I went to Piccadilly Circus? Forgive me, young woman, I was forgetting. You aren't old enough to remember. Well, never mind the details. And what is there remarkable about the Regent Theatre, Alderman? I intend it to be a theatre of the highest class, Sir John, said Edward Henry. Nothing but the very best will be seen on its boards. That's not remarkable, Alderman. We're all like that. Haven't you noticed it? Then secondly, said Edward Henry, I am the sole proprietor. I have no financial backers, no mortgages, no partners. I have made no contracts with anybody. That, said Sir John, is not unremarkable. In fact, many persons who do not happen to possess my own robust capacity for belief might not correct your statement. And thirdly, said Edward Henry, every member of the audience, even in the boxes, the most expensive seats will have a full view of the whole of the stage, or in the alternative, at Matine's, a full view of a lady's hat. Alderman, said Sir John gravely, before I offer you another egg, let me warn you against carrying remarkableness too far. You may be regarded as eccentric if you go on like that. Some people, I'm told, don't want a view of the stage. Then they had better not come to my theatre, said Edward Henry.  Admittedly, Edward Henry was nervous. Admittedly, he was a provincial in the presence of one of the most illustrious personages in the empire. Nevertheless, he controlled his nervousness and reflected. Nobody else from the five towns would or could have done what I'm doing. Moreover, this chap is a mountain-bank. In the five towns they would cout out to him, but they'd laugh at him. They would mighty soon add him up. Why should I be nervous? I'm as good as he is. He finished with the thought which has inspired many a timid man with new courage and a desperate crisis. The fellow can't eat me. Then he said aloud, I want to ask you a question, Sir John. One. One. Are you the head of the theatrical profession, or is Sir Gerald Pompey? Sir Gerald Pompey? Sir Gerald Pompey. Haven't you seen the papers this morning? Sir John Pilgrim turned pale. Springing up, he seized the topmost of an undisturbed pile of daily papers and feverishly opened it. He muttered. He was continually thus imitating his own behaviour on the stage. The origin of his renowned breakfasts lay in the fact that he had once played the part of a millionaire ambassador who juggled at breakfast with his own affairs and the affairs of the world. The stage breakfast of a millionaire ambassador created by a playwright on the verge of bankruptcy had appealed to his imagination and influenced all the mornings of his life. They've done it just to irritate me as I'm starting off on my world tour. He muttered, coursing round the table. Then he stopped and gazed at Edward Henry. This is a political knighthood. Said he. It has nothing to do with the stage. It is not like my knighthood, is it? Certainly not. Edward Henry agreed. But you must know how people will talk, Sir John. People will be going about this very morning and saying that Sir Gerald is at last the head of the theatrical profession. I came here for your authoritative opinion. I know you're unbiased. Sir John resumed his chair. As for Pompey's qualifications as a head, he murmured, I know nothing of them. Very fancy his heart is excellent. I only saw him twice, once in his own theatre and once in Bond Street. I should be inclined to say that on the stage he looks more like a gentleman than any gentleman ought to look, and that in the street he might be mistaken for an actor. How will that suit you? It's a clue, said Edward Henry. Olderman, exclaimed Sir John, I believe that if I didn't keep a firm hand on myself, I should soon begin to like you. Have another cup of coffee, John. Goodbye, bootmaker. Goodbye. I only want to know for certain who is the head, said Edward Henry, because I mean to invite the head of the theatrical profession to lay the cornerstone of my new theatre. Ah! When do you start on your world's tour, Sir John? I leave Tilbury with my entire company, scenery and effects, on the morning of Tuesday week by the candor-har. I shall play first at Cairo. How awkward, said Edward Henry, I meant to ask you to lay the stone on that very afternoon. Wednesday, that is. Indeed. Yes, Sir John, the ceremony will be a very original affair, very original. The foundation-stone laying? Mused, Sir John, but if you're already up to the first floor, how can you be laying the foundation-stone on Wednesday week? I didn't say foundation-stone, I said corner-stone, Edward Henry corrected him, an entire novelty. That's why we can't be ready before Wednesday week. And you want to advertise your house by getting the head of the profession to assist? That is exactly my idea. Well, said Sir John, whatever else you may lack, Mr Olderman, you are not lacking enough, if you expect to succeed in that. Edward Henry smiled. I have already heard in a roundabout way, he replied, that Sir Gerald Pompey would not be unwilling to officiate. My only difficulty is that I am a truthful man by nature. Whoever officiates, I shall, of course, have to have him labelled in my own interests as the head of the theatrical profession. And I don't want to say anything that isn't true. There was a pause. Now, Sir John, couldn't you stay a day or two longer in London and join the ship at Marseille instead of going on board at Tilbury? But I have made all my arrangements. The whole world knows that I am going on board at Tilbury. Just then the door opened and a servant announced, Mr Carlow Trent. Sir John Pilgrim rushed like a locomotive to the threshold and seized both Carlow Trent's hands with such violence of welcome that Carlow Trent's eyeglass fell out of his eye, and the purple ribbon dangled to his waist. Come in, come in! said Sir John, and begin to read at once. I have been looking out of the window for you for the last quarter of an hour. Olderman, this is Mr Carlow Trent, the well-known dramatic parrot. Trent, this is one of the greatest geniuses in London. Oh, you know each other. It's not surprising. No, don't stop the shake hands. Sit down here, Trent. Sit down on this chair. Here. Here, snip. Take his hat. Worry it. Worry it. Now, Trent, don't read to me. It might make you nervous and hurried. Read to Miss Taft and Chung and to Mr Givington over there. Imagine they are the great and enlightened public. You have imagination, haven't you, bearing a poet? Sir John had accomplished the change of mood with the rapidity of a transformation scene, in which form of art, by the way, he was a great adept. Carlow Trent, somewhat breathless, dug a manuscript from his pocket, opened it, and announced, The Orient Pearl. Oh! breathed Edward Henry. For some thirty minutes Edward Henry listened to hexameters the first he had ever heard. The effect of them on his moral organism was worse than he had expected. He glanced about at the other auditors. Givington had opened a box of tubes and was spreading colours on his palette.  Snip was asleep on the parquet. Miss Taft bit the end of a pencil with her aggrable teeth. Sir John Pilgrim lay at full length on a sofa, occasionally lifting his legs. Edward Henry despaired of help and his great need. But just as his desperation was becoming too acute to be born, Carlow Trent ejaculated the word, CUTTON! It was the first word that Edward Henry had clearly understood. That is the fast act, said Carlow Trent, wiping his face. Snip awakened. Edward Henry rose, and in the hush tiptoed round to the sofa. Good-bye, Sir John, he whispered. You're not going? I am, Sir John. The head of his profession sat up. How right you are, said he. How right you are! Trent, I knew from the first words it wouldn't do. It lacks colour. I want something more crimson, like the brighter parts of this jacket. Something! He waved hands in the air. The old woman agrees with me. He's going. Don't trouble to read any more, Trent. But drop in any time, any time. What o'clock is it? It's nearly noon, said Edward Henry, in the tone of an old friend. Well, I'm sorry you can't oblige me, Sir John. I'm off to see Sir Gerald Pompey now. But who says I can't oblige you? protested Sir John. Who knows what sacrifice I would not make in the highest interests of the provision. Old woman, you jumped to conclusions with the agility of an acrobat, but they are false conclusions. A mistaft, the telephone. John, my coat. A good-bye, Trent, good-bye. An hour later Edward Henry met Mr. Marrier in the Grand Babylon Hotel. Well, Sir, said Mr. Marrier, you are the greatest man that ever lived. Why? Mr. Marrier showed him the stop-press news of a penny evening paper, which read, Sir John Pilgrim has abandoned his ceremonious departure from Tilbury in order to lay the cornerstone of the new Regent Theatre on Wednesday week. He and Miss Cora Pride will join the Kandahar at Marseille. You needn't do any advertising, said Mr. Marrier. Pilgrim will do all the advertising for you. Three. Edward Henry and Mr. Marrier worked together admirably that afternoon on the arrangements for the cornerstone laying, and, such was the interaction of their separate entusiasms, it soon became apparent that all London, in the only right sense of the word all, must and would be at ceremony. Characteristically, Mr. Marrier happened to have a list or catalogue of all London in his pocket, and Edward Henry appreciated him more than ever. But towards four o'clock, Mr. Marrier annoyed and even somewhat alarmed Edward Henry by a mysterious change of man. His assured optimism slipped away from him. He grew uneasy, darkly preoccupied, and inefficient. At last, when the clock in the room struck four and Edward Henry failed to hear it, Mr. Marrier said, I am afraid I shall have to ask you to excuse me now. Why? I told you that I had an appointment for tea at four. Did you? What is it? Edward Henry demanded, with an employer's instinctive assumption, that souls as well as brains can be bought for such sums as three pounds a week. A whole lady coming to tea-house, that is downstairs. In this hotel? Yes. Who is it? Edward Henry pursued lightly. For though he appreciated Mr. Marrier, he also despised him. However, he found the grace to add, may one ask? It's Miss Elsie April. Do you mean to say, Marrier, complained Edward Henry, that you've known Miss Elsie April all these months and never told me? There aren't two, I suppose. It is the cousin or something of Rose Euclid. Mr. Marrier nodded. The fact is, he said, she and I are joint honorary organising secretaries for the annual conference of the Azure Society. You know it leads the New Thought Movement in England. You never told me that, either. It didn't, I saw. I didn't think it would interest you, besides both Miss April and I are comparatively new members. Oh! said Edward Henry, with all the canny provincial's conviction of his own superior shrewdness, and he repeated, so as to intensify this conviction and impress it on others, oh! In the undergrowth of his mind was the thought, oh dear this man whose brains belong to me be the organising secretary of something that I don't know anything about and don't want to know anything about. Yes, said Mr. Marrier, modestly. I say, Edward Henry inquired warmly with an impulsive gesture, who is she? Who is she? repeated Mr. Marrier, blankly. Yes, what does she do? It doesn't do anything, said Mr. Marrier. Very good amateur actress. Goes about a great deal. Her mother was on the stage, married a wealthy wholesale corset-maker. Who did? Miss April, Edward Henry had a twinge. No, her mother! Both parents dead, and Miss April has an income, a considerable income. What do you call considerable? Five or six thousand a year. The deuce, murmured Edward Henry. May have lost a bit of it, of course, Mr. Marrier hedged, but not much, not much. Well, said Edward Henry, smiling. What about my tea? Am I to have tea all by myself? Will you come down and meet her? Mr. Marrier's expression approached the wistful. Well, said Edward Henry, it's an idea, isn't it? Why should I be the only person in London who doesn't know Miss Elsie April? It was ten minutes past four, when they descended into the electric publicity of the Grand Babylon. Amid the music and the rattle of crockery, and the gliding waiters, and the large nodding hats that gathered more and more thickly round the tables, there was no sign of Elsie April. She may have been and gone away again, said Edward Henry, apprehensive. Oh, no! She wouldn't go away! Mr. Marrier was positive. In the tone of a man with an income of two hundred pounds a week, he ordered a table to be prepared for three. At ten minutes to five, he said, I hope she hasn't been and gone away again. Edward Henry began to be gloomy and resentful. The crowded and factitious deity of the place actually annoyed him.  If she was merely late, he equally objected to such unconscionable inexactitude. He blamed Mr. Marrier. He considered that he had the right to blame Mr. Marrier because he paid him three pounds a week, and he very badly wanted his tea. Then, therefore, eyes which for forty minutes had scarcely left the entrance staircase were rewarded.  I'm not late, am I?" she said after the introduction. No, they both replied, and they both meant it, for she was like fine weather. The forty minutes of waiting were forgotten, expunged from the records of time, just as the memory of a month of rain is obliterated by one splendid sunny day. Four. Edward Henry enjoyed the tea, which was bad to an extraordinary degree. He became uplifted in the presence of Miss Elsie April, whereas Mr. Marrier, strangely, drooped to still deeper depths of unaccustomed inert melancholy. Edward Henry decided that she was every bit as pecan challenging and electable as he had imagined her to be on the day when he ate an artichoke at the next table to hers at Wilkins. She consided exactly with his remembrance of her, except that she was now slightly more plump. Her contours were effulgent, there was no other word, beautiful she was not, for she had a turned-up nose. But what charm she radiated! Every movement and tone enchanted Edward Henry. He was enchanted not at intervals by a chance gesture, but all the time, when she was serious, when she smiled, when she fingered her teacup, when she pushed her furs back over her shoulders, when she spoke of the weather, when she spoke of the social crisis, and when she made fun with a certain brief absence of restraint, rather in her artichoke manner of making fun. He thought and believed, this is the finest woman I ever saw. He clearly perceived the inferiority of other women, whom nevertheless he admired and liked, such as the Countess of Chel and Lady Waldo. It was not her brains, nor her beauty, nor her stylishness that affected him. No, it was something mysterious and dizzying that resided in every particle of her individuality. He thought, I've often and often wanted to see her again, and now I'm having tea with her, and he was happy. Have you got that list, Mr. Marrier? She asked in her low and thrilling voice, so saying she raised her eyebrows in expectation, a delicious effect, especially behind her half-raised white veil. Mr. Marrier produced a document. But that's my list, said Edward Henry. Your list? I'd better tell you, Mr. Marrier has said a rapid explanation. Mr. Macien wanted a list of the right sort of people to ask to the cornerstone laying face-theater, so I used this as a basis. Elsie April smiled again. Very good, she approved. What is your list, Marrier? asked Edward Henry. It was Elsie who replied, People to be invited to the dramatic soiree of the Azure Society. We give six a year. No title is announced. Nobody except a committee of three knows even the name of the author of the play that is to be performed. Everything is kept a secret. Even the author doesn't know that his play has been chosen. Don't you think it's a delightful idea? An offspring of the new thought. He agreed that it was a delightful idea. Shall I be invited? He asked. She answered gravely. I don't know. Are you going to play in it? She paused. Yes. Then you must let me come. A talking of plays. He stopped. He was on the edge of facetiously relating the episode of The Orient Pearl at Sir John Pilgrims, but he withdrew in time. Supposing that The Orient Pearl was the piece to be performed by the Azure Society, it might well be. It was, in his opinion, just the sort of play that that sort of society would choose. Nevertheless, he was as anxious as ever to see Elsie April act. He really thought that she could and would transfigure any play. Even his profound scorn of new thought, the subject of which he was entirely ignorant, began to be modified, and by nothing but the enchantment of the tone in which Elsie April murmured the words, as your society. How soon is the performance? he demanded. Wednesday week, said she. That's the very day of my cornerstone laying, he said. However, it doesn't matter. My little affair will be in the afternoon. But it can't be, said she solemnly. It would interfere with us, and we should interfere with it. How an annual conference takes place in the afternoon, all London will be there. Said Mr. Marrier, rather shame-faced. There's just it, Mr. Macien. It positively never occurred to me that the Elsie April's conference is to be on that very day. I never thought of it until nearly four o'clock, and then I scarcely knew how to explain it to you. I rarely don't know how it escaped me. Mr. Marrier's trouble was now out, and he had declined in Edward Henry's esteem. Mr. Marrier was afraid of him. Mr. Marrier's list of personages was no longer a miracle of foresight. It was a mere coincidence. He doubted if Mr. Marrier was worth even his three pounds a week. Edward Henry began to feel ruthless and Napoleonic. He was capable of brushing away the whole as your society and new thought movement into limbo. You must please alter your date, said Elsie April, and she put her right elbow on the table and lent her chin on it, and thus somehow established a domestic intimacy for the three, amidst all the Blair and notoriety of the vast tea-room. Oh, but I can't, he said easily, familiarly. It was her occasional artichoke manner that had justified him in assuming this tone. I can't, he repeated. I've told Sir John I can't possibly be ready any earlier, and on the day after he'll almost certainly be on his way to Marseille. Besides, I don't want to alter my date. My date is in the papers by this time. You've already done quite enough harm to the movement as it is, said Elsie April, stoutly, but ravishingly. Me? Harm to the movement? Haven't you stopped the building of our church? Oh, so you know Mr. Ristle? Very well indeed. Anybody else would have done the same in my place. Edward Henry defended himself. Your cousin, Miss Euclid, would have done it, and Marrier here was in the affair with her. Ah! exclaimed Elsie April. But we didn't belong to the movement then. We didn't know. Come now, Mr. Machen. Sir John Pilgrim will of course be a great draw. But even if you've got him and managed to stick to him, we should beat you. You'll never get the audience you want if you don't change from Wednesday week. After all, the number of people who count in London is very small, and we've got nearly all of them. You've no idea. I won't change from Wednesday week. Said Edward Henry. This defiance of her put him into an extremely agitated felicity. Now, my dear Mr. Machen. He was acutely aware of the charm she was exerting, and yet he discovered that he could easily withstand it. Now, my dear Miss April, please don't try to take advantage of your beauty. She sat up. She was apparently measuring herself and him. Then you won't change the day truly. Her urbanity was in no wise impaired. I won't. He laughed lightly. I dare say you aren't used to people like me, Miss April. She might well get the better of Seven's acts, but not of him. Edward Henry Machen from the Five Towns. Marry her? Said he suddenly with a bluff humorous downrightness. You know you're in a very awkward position here, and you know you've got to see Mr. Alloid for me before six o'clock. Be off with you. I will be responsible for Miss April. I'll show these Londoners, he said to himself. It's simple enough when you once get into it. And he did in fact succeed in dismissing Mr. Marryer after the latter had talked as your business with Miss April for a couple of minutes. I must go too, said Elsie, impotervable, impenetrable. At one moment he entreated and masterfully signalled Marryer to depart. After all, he was paying the fellow three pounds a week. She watched Marryer thread his way out. Already she had put on her gloves. I must go. She repeated. Her rich red lips then closed defiantly. Have you got a motor here? Edward Henry asked. No. Then if I may, I'll see you home. You may, she said, gazing full at him, whereby he was somewhat startled and put out of countenance. Five Are we friends? he asked, roguishly. I hope so, she said, with no diminution of her inscrutability. They were in a taxicab, rolling along the embankment towards the Buckingham Palace Hotel, where she said she lived. He was happy. Why am I happy? He thought. What is there in her that makes me happy? He did not know. But he knew that he had never been in a taxicab or anywhere else, with any woman half so elegant. Her elegance flattered him enormously. Here he was, a provincial man of business, ruffling it with the best of them. And she was young in her worldly maturity. Was she twenty-seven? She could not be more.  Yes, he was fully aware that he was a married man. He had a distinct vision of the angelic Nellie, of the three children and of his mother. But it seemed to him that his own case differed in some very subtle and yet effective manner from the similar case of any other married man. And he lived, unharassed by apprehensions, in the lively joy of the moment. But, she said, I hope you won't come to see me act. Why? Because I should prefer you not to. You would not be sympathetic to me. Oh, yes, I should. I shouldn't feel it so. And then, with a swift disarrangement of all the folds of her skirt, she turned and faced him. Mr. Matian, do you know why I've let you come with me?   No, I simply wanted to tell you that you've ruined Rose, my cousin. Miss Euclid? Me? Ruin Miss Euclid? Yes. You robbed her of her theatre, her one chance. He blushed. Excuse me. He said I didn't know such thing. I simply bought her option from her. She was absolutely free to keep the option or let it go. The fact remains, said Elsie April, with humid eyes. The fact remains that she'd set her heart on having that theatre, and you failed her at the last instant. And she has nothing, and you've got the theatre entirely in your own hands. I'm not so silliest to suppose you can't defend yourself legally. But let me tell you that Rose went to the United States heartbroken, and she's playing to empty houses there, empty houses. Whereas she might have been here in London, interested in her theatre, and preparing for a successful season. I had no idea of this. Breathed Edward Henry. He was dashed. I'm awfully sorry. Yes, no doubt. But there it is. Silence fell. He knew not what to say. He felt himself, in one way, innocent. But he felt himself, in another way, blackly guilty. His remorse for the telephone trick which he had practiced on Rose Euclid burst forth again after a long period of quiescence, simulating death, and acutely troubled him. No, he was not guilty. He insisted in his heart that he was not guilty. And yet, and yet, no taxicab ever travelled so quickly as that taxicab. Before he could gather together his forces, it had arrived beneath the awning of the Buckingham Palace Hotel. His last words to her were, Now, I shan't change the day of my stone laying, but don't worry about your conference. You'll know it'll be perfectly all right. He spoke archly, with a brave attempt at cajolery. But in the recesses of his soul, he was not sure that she had not defeated him in this their first encounter. However, seven sacks might talk as he chose. She was not such a persuasive creature as all that. She had scarcely even tried to be persuasive. At about a quarter-past six, when he saw his underling again, he said to Mr. Marrior, Marrior, I've got a great idea. We'll have that cornerstone laying at night, after the theatres, say, half past eleven. Torchlight, fireworks from the cranes. It'll tickle old pilgrim to death. I shall have a marquee, with match-boarding sides fixed up inside, and heat it with a few of those smokeless stoves. We can easily lay on electricity. It will be absolutely the most sensational stone laying that ever was. It'll be in all the papers all over the blessed world. Think of it. Torches, fireworks from the cranes. But I won't change the day, neither for Miss April nor anybody else. Mr. Marrior dissolved in laudations. Well, Edward Henry agreed with false diffidence. It'll knock spots off some of them in this town. He felt that he had snatched victory out of defeat, but the next moment he was capable of feeling that Elsie April had defeated him even in his victory. Anyhow, she was a most disconcerting and fancy monopolizing creature. There was one source of unsullied gratification. He had shaved off his beard. Six. Come up here, Sir John. Edward Henry called. You'll see better, and you'll be out of the crowd. And I'll show you something. He stood in a fur coat at the top of a short flight of rough-surfaced steps between two unplastered walls. A staircase which ultimately was to form part of an emergency exit from the dress-circle of the Regent Theatre. Sir John Pilgrim, also in a fur coat, stood near the bottom of the steps, with a glare of a well's light full on him, and throwing his shadow almost up to Edward Henry's feet. Around, Edward Henry could describe the vast mysterious forms of the building's skeleton, black in places, but in other places lit up by bright rays from the gaiety below, and showing glimpses of that gaiety in the occasional revelation of a woman's cloak through slits in the construction. High overhead, two gigantic cranes interlaced their arms, and even higher than the cranes shone the stars of the clear spring night. The hour was nearly half-past twelve, the ceremony was concluded, and successfully concluded. All London had indeed been present, half the aristocracy of England, and far more than half the aristocracy of the London stage, the entire preciosity of the Metropolis, journalists with influence enough to plunge the whole of Europe into war. In one short hour, Edward Henry's right hand, peeping out from that superb fur coat, which he had had the wit to buy, had made the acquaintance of scores upon scores of the most celebrated right-hands in Britain. He had the sensation that in future, whenever he walked about the best streets of the West End, he would be continually compelled to stop and chat with all gusts and renowned acquaintances, and that he would always be taking off his hat to fine ladies, who flashed by nodding from powerful motor-cars. Indeed, Edward Henry was surprised at the number of famous people who seemed to have nothing to do but attend advertising rituals at midnight or thereabouts. Sir John Pilgrim had, as Maria predicted, attended to the advertisements, but Edward Henry had helped. And on the day itself the evening newspapers had taken the bit between their teeth and run off with the affair at a great pace. The affair was on all the contents bills hours before it actually happened. Edward Henry had been interviewed a dozen times, and had rather enjoyed that. Gradually he had perceived that his novel idea for a cornerstone laying had caught the facile imagination of the London populace. For that night at least he was famous, as famous as anybody. Sir John had made a wondrous, picturesque figure of himself as, in a raised corner of the crowded and beflagged marquee, he had flourished a trowel and talked about the great and enlightened public, and about the highest function of the drama, and about the duty of the artist to elevate, and about the solemn responsibility of theatrical managers, and about the absence of petty jealousies in the world of the stage. Everybody had vociferously applauded, while reporters turned rapidly the pages of their notebooks. Ass! Edward Henry had said to himself with much force and sincerity, meaning Sir John, but he too had vociferously applauded, for he was from the five towns, and in the five towns people are like that. Then Sir John had declared the cornerstone well and truly laid. It was on the corner which the electric side of the future was destined to occupy, and after being thanked had wandered off, shaking hands here and there, absently, to arrive at length in the office of the Clark of Works, where Edward Henry had arranged suitably to refresh the stone-layer, and a few choice-friends of both sexes. He had hoped that Elsie April would somehow reach that little office, but Elsie April was absent, indisposed. Her absence made the one blemish on the affair's perfection. Elsie April, it appears, had been struck down by a cold, which had entirely deprived her of her voice, so that the performance of the Azure Society's dramatic club, so eagerly anticipated by all London, had had to be postponed. Edward Henry bore the misfortune of the Azure Society with stoicism, but he had been extremely disappointed by the invisibility of Elsie April at his stone-laying. His eyes had wanted her. Sir John, awakening apparently out of a dream when Edward Henry had summoned him twice, climbed the uneven staircase, and joined his host and youngest rival on the insecure planks and gangways that covered the first floor of the Regent Theatre. Come higher, said Edward Henry, mounting upward to the beginnings of the second story, above which hung suspended from the large crane the great cage that was employed to carry brick and stone from the ground. The two fur coats almost mingled. Well, young man, said Sir John Pilgrim, your troubles will soon be beginning. Now Edward Henry hated to be addressed as young man, especially in the patronising tone which Sir John used. Moreover, he had a suspicion that in Sir John's mind was the illusion that Sir John alone was responsible for the creation of the Regent Theatre, that without Sir John's aid as a stone-layer it could never have existed. You mean my troubles as a manager? said Edward Henry grimly. In twelve months from now, before I come back from my world's tour, you'll be ready to get rid of this thing on any terms. You will be wishing that you had imitated my example and kept out of Piccadilly Circus. Piccadilly Circus is sinister, my old man. Sinister! Come up into the cage, Sir John, said Edward Henry. You'll get a still better view. Rather fine, isn't it, even from here? He climbed up into the cage and helped Sir John to climb. And standing there in the immediate silence, Sir John murmured with emotion, We are alone with London. Edward Henry thought, Cuckoo! They heard footsteps resounding on loose planks in a distant corner. Who's there? Edward Henry called. Only me! replied a voice. Nobody takes any notice of me. Who is it? muttered Sir John. Alloyed the architect, Edward Henry answered, and then calling out loud, Come up here, Alloyed! The muffled and coated figure approached, hesitated, and then joined the other two in the cage. Let me introduce Mr. Alloyed, the architect. Sir John Pilgrim, said Edward Henry. Ah! said Sir John, bending towards Alloyed. Are you the genius who draws those amusing little lines and scrolls on transparent paper, Mr. Alloyed? Tell me, are they rarely necessary for a building, or do you only do them for your own fun? Quite between ourselves, I've often wondered. Said Mr. Alloyed with a pale smile. Of course, everyone looks on the architect as a joke. The pause was somewhat difficult. You promised us rockets, Mr. Mason, said Sir John. My mind yearns for rockets. Right you are! Edward Henry complied. Close by, but somewhat above them was the crane driver, and by an engineer whom Edward Henry was paying for overtime. A signal was given, and the cage containing the proprietor and the architect of the theatre, and Sir John Pilgrim, bounded most startlingly up into the air. Simultaneously it began to revolve rapidly on its cable, as such cages will, whether filled with bricks or with celebrities. Oh! ejaculated Sir John, terror struck, clinging hard to the side of the cage. Oh! ejaculated Mr. Alloyed, also clinging hard. I want you to see London, said Edward Henry, who had been through the experience before. The wind blew cold above the chimneys. The cage came to a standstill exactly at the peak of the other crane. London lay beneath the trio, the curves of Regent Street and of Shaftesbury Avenue. The right lines of Piccadilly, lower Regent Street and Coventry Street, were displayed at their feet as on an illuminated map over which crawled mannequins and toy-autobuses. At their feet a long procession of automobiles were sliding off, one after another, with the guests of the evening. The metropolis stretched away, lifting to the north, and sinking to the south into the jewelled river, on whose curved bank rose messages of light concerning whiskey, tea, and beer. The peaceful nocturnal roar of the city, dwindling every moment now, reached them like an emanation from another world. You asked for a rocket, Sir John, said Edward Henry, you shall have it. He had taken a box of fuses from his pocket. He struck one, and his companions in the swaying cage, now saw that a tremendous rocket was hung on the peak of the other crane. He lighted the fuse. An instant of deathly suspense. And then, with the terrific and shattering bang and splutter, the rockets shot towards the kingdom of heaven, and there burst into a vast dome of red blossoms, which, irradiating a square mile of roofs, descended slowly and softly on the west end, like a benediction. You always want crimson, don't you, Sir John? said Edward Henry. An easy cheeriness of his voice gradually tranquilized the alarm natural to two very earthy men, who for the first time found themselves suspended insecurely over a gulf. I have seen nothing so impressive since the Russian ballet, murmured Mr. Alloid recovering. You ought to go to Siberia, Alloid, said Edward Henry. Sir John Pilgrim, pretending now to be extremely brave, suddenly turned on Edward Henry, and in a convulsive grasp seized his hand. My friend, he said hoarsely, a thought has just occurred to me. You and I are the two most remarkable men in London. He glanced up as the cage trembled. How thin that steel-rope seems! The cage slowly descended, with many twists. Edward Henry said not a word. He was too deeply moved by his own triumph to be able to speak. Who else but me, he reflected, exultant, could have managed this affair as I've managed it.  As the cage approached the platforms of the first story, he saw two people waiting there. One he recognized as the faithful, harmless Maria. The other was a woman. Someone here wants you urgently, Mr. Machen, cried Maria. By Jove, exclaimed Alloid under his breath, what a beautiful figure! No girl as attractive as that ever wanted to see me urgently. Some folks do have all the luck. The woman had moved a little away when the cage landed. Edward Henry followed her along the planking. It was Elsie April. I thought you were ill in bed, he breathed astounded. Her answering voice reached him, scarcely audible. I'm on horse. My cousin Rose has arrived to-night in secret at Tilbury by the Minnetonka. The Minnetonka, he muttered, staggering coincidence, mystic heralding of misfortune. I was sent for. The pale ghost of a delicate voice continued. She's broken, ruined, no courage left, awful fiasco in Chicago. She's hiding now at a little hotel in Soho. She absolutely declined to come to my hotel. I've done what I could for the moment. As I was driving by here just now, I saw the rocket, and I thought of you. I thought you ought to know it. I thought it was my duty to tell you.  She seemed to be trembling. A heavy hand was laid on his shoulder. Excuse me, sir," said a strong, rough voice, or you, the gent, that fired off the rocket. It's against the law to do that kind of thing here, and you ought to know it. I shall have to trouble you." It was a policeman of the C Division. Sir John was disappearing with his stealthy and conspiratorial air down the staircase.


This past weekend it took part in the People's Climate March in New York City, joining over 300,000 people and standing alongside thousands of people of faith as we prayed with our legs as Abraham Joshua Heschel so accurately put it. Every step was an act of faith because this march is more than just a political action. The way we care for the earth has spiritual implications. God is green. We're all in this together. Love your mother. Because the earth is the Lord's and everything in it.


Hello everyone and welcome to the 5 o'clock to 5.30pm session of the 2021 Open Simulator Community Conference. In this session, we are pleased to introduce the presentation, Path of Least Resistance, The Challenge Facing Virtual Environments. Our speaker is Kevin Fienen. Kevin is the founder and president of Nomaz Corporation, an IT management consulting company and RockLiv University Consortium, a professional trade association supporting collaboration and providing managed solutions for educators and institutions using virtual environments. Kevin's 35-year career has included authoring and research in the fields of information management, business processes, education technology, and game-based learning methods. Please check out the website found at conference.opensimulator.org for speaker bios, for details of the sessions, and the full schedule of events. The session is being live-streamed and recorded, so if you have questions or comments during the session, you may send tweets to at OpenSimCC with the hashtag PoundOSCC21. Welcome everyone, let's begin the session. Hello and thank you for having me here today. If you don't mind, I will take questions at the end of the presentation rather than throw the middle. We've all experienced the joys and challenges of working within Second Life and Open Simulator since 2003, however, over the past 10 years, the competitive advantage of environments like Second Life and Open Simulator have not kept paced with technological innovation in general. If we look back at the original positioning of Second Life when it first came out, the platform had distinct advantages over any other technology that existed at the time. The key distinction, however, was that Second Life lowered the barriers to entry for social engagement within a virtual setting that combined several unique and distinct technologies that previously were complex to develop, complex to integrate, difficult to learn, and difficult to share. Second Life and by extension Open Simulator have provided some of the best elements of the worldwide web, virtualization, and game design connected through a blending of both synchronous and asynchronous communications. It was, at the time, the path of least resistance that allowed people to develop content on their own terms in a way that was quick, simple, easy to understand, and easy to consume. What's happened since then has been a confluence of various agendas, trying to figure out how to monetize the platform in order to enable continuing research and development and its growth and usability. In essence, Second Life was and continues to be a technology in search of a problem to solve and not the other way around. If we look at what's happened since 2003, you'll notice that in the roughly 20 short years since Second Life's first introduction, the world around us has changed drastically. Key technologies that have changed everyday life include the following that I feel are important to me specifically because this will highlight the exact nature of the challenge we are currently faced with today. So going back to when Second Life was first introduced in 2003, we saw the introduction of the Android operating system. In 2004, Facebook came on the scene. 2005, we were all introduced to YouTube. In 2006, cloud architectures, including Amazon Web Services. In 2007, the iPhone was first introduced. In 2018, we had Airbnb. We had the initial start of Uber and other crowdsourced services started to take hold. 2009, we had cryptocurrencies, blockchain, Bitcoin all started to make their way onto the scene. In 2010, Apple continued its innovation with iPads. And then in 2011, Google responded with their Chromebooks. In 2012, home hobbyists started to first develop automated architecture and robotics based on the Raspberry PI, allowing people to innovate in their basements that substantially reduce costs. In 2013, we had PlayStation and Xbox. They're changing the way in which we consumed entertainment. In 2014, Tesla started to introduce their first self-driving cars, which has subsequently paved the way for a host of other innovation leveraging robotics and artificial intelligence. 2015, Amazon introduced their Echo device as a home personal virtual assistant. 2016, we had Oculus Rift. In 2017, adaptive security became all the rage. It became a critical factor in protecting people's personal and private information. 2018, artificial intelligence started to make its way out of the back corners of hardcore R&D firms and into the mainstream. 2019 saw the first 5G networks enabling faster mobile communication with greater speed and bandwidth. Last year, we saw the first practical application of quantum computing going beyond a simple theoretical capacity to process highly complex mathematical-based applications in a fraction of the time of using conventional means. For each of these technologies that survived to become household names, even if you don't think you're using these technologies directly, there have been thousands of competitors trying to occupy the same space in order to capture these technological markets. What the survivors all have in common are they tapped into two key aspects of developing a path of least resistance. The first being prioritizing people over technology. The second being the democratization of technology. While not all of the winners in these economic battles have done either well, elements are both necessary in order for people to follow the path of least resistance in overcoming their personal dilemmas in adopting the technology. In the meantime, where have we gone with second life in terms of innovation and experimentation? Well, outside of three core failed experiments, those being second life in a web browser, sansar and the integration of second life with 3D VR headsets, there have only really been five key advancements, one of which has been so late to the game as to be symbolic of how second life as a technology is trailing rather than leading the field. In 2007, second life introduced the integration of Vivox Revoice. In 2008, this community launched the first open simulator region and the introduction of the hypergrid. In 2011, Mesh was introduced into the environment. In 2014, we got pathfinding was introduced to allow greater control over non avatar characters within the environment. And then just in the last 18 months has been second life's move finally catching up with open simulator in that respect to using the cloud using Amazon Web Services. While there have been other major enhancements to the back end of the platform in order to improve stability, almost all other improvements in the platform have been related to transactional improvements rather than transformative and innovative engagement on behalf of its clients. We've seen that this conference, there are a lot of things and greater opportunities in open simulator that are in the pipeline. However, planning is not the same as doing. Second life, the second life that we see today is competitive only in that no other company had, and I refer to this in the past tense, had been able to compete head to head with London Labs lead in developing these types of integrated services in a way that could be cost justified and lead to eventual profitability. While this may have worked to the labs advantage between 2010 and 2020, today the playing field is much different. Google, Microsoft and Facebook are all spending between 16 and 25% of their overall Avenue revenue streams in research and development with a very strong focus on products related to augmented and virtual reality. To put this in context, combined, the largest players are investing upwards of $150 billion per year in research and development compared to an approximate $15 million per year that is available to London Labs based solely on cash flow through annual revenue streams. Recently, Philip Rosedale was interviewed on the implications of Facebook's rebranding as meta. He was quoted as saying, there still arises this waiting question of what it is that's going to cause normal people a lot of time to be willing to go into these online spaces. I feel in this case that this is the second time we've missed the mark in terms of what's actually going on. In the first place, companies like Google and Facebook make the majority of their money passively. By this, what I mean is that they don't require users to be active on their systems all the time in order to generate revenue. It is the simple act of engagement, no matter how small, and the ability to monetize those small interactions that has allowed them to grow to the sizes they are today. We give of our privacy as a currency to support the environments we choose to believe are free when, in fact, they're not. The second point is that Philip's comments presupposes that the technology as a means of social engagement is the primary driver for these types of platforms as compared to providing opportunities to resolve the problems that drive people to explore solutions that help them remove barriers and free up their personal time and money to do other things. Innovation and experimentation on this scale, however, is expensive. Facebook is investing in Spark AR for creating content. Google is investing in its own Google AR system. Microsoft has heavily invested into its HoloLens. With the context of our experience between Second Life and Open Simulator, there is a core failing in the way each of these companies are approaching their immersive experience solutions. It is also one of the things that Second Life got right way back in 2003 when it first watched, and that is the ability to allow the average person to create complex experiences simply. Our competitive advantage is people in problem solving. There's is a desire to monetize interactions with data that allow people to solve problems at some point we need to meet in the middle. Technology trends over the next 10 years that are going to be key to solving modern problems include expanding on existing innovations such as integrated technology architecture, natural language processing, low code platforms, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and data information exchange. All of this with a core focus on experiences that will enable augmented reality to become ubiquitous and how we engage in everyday life such that the technology becomes seamless in the background rather than forward and in your face. Second Life and Open Simulator are at a bit of a crossroads in that. If they try to compete head to head with the big three, they're just simply going to get outspent. However, there is an opportunity to enable these types of platforms to do what they do best. That is to bring complex technology down to the point where it's understandable to allow people to prototype solutions, exchange ideas, to promote opportunities for experimentation across the full spectrum of innovation that's occurred over the past 20 years, and also to stay ahead of new innovations as they come into the market. There are two core questions that need to be asked here. What are the key barriers to entry that are preventing people resolving key or complex problems they are experiencing today? And how can we support people in innovating their own solutions to creating that path of least resistance? The current tools we have available within both Second Life and Open Simulator represent a walled garden cut off from the problems of today. It is exasperated by a lack of integration with external data and applications. It's constrained by an outdated requirement to limit future expansion and are disconnected from revenue models to support ongoing research and development that are common today, but were truly unthinkable in 2003. The first step needs to be to remove the training wheels and to bring the architecture in line with modern methods of application development, allowing the integration of third-party data and extensions to the platform. There is a window of opportunity to at the very least maintain competitive parity with upcoming platforms that are prepared to intrude on this space and all that we hope so gear. In July of this year, Rockcliffe conducted a Second Life Usability Survey wherein educators provided some details of some of the problems and challenges that they are working on trying to overcome. Subsequently, we've been working with Linden Lab to understand the modern need for people conducting education within these environments. While some of the immediate needs are fairly simple feature requests, others are more opportunist, requiring the lab to let go of some long cherished boundaries on what the platform is and where the platform could potentially take us. Some examples include the following. It's been a long limitation of the platform to focus solely on individuals and ignore the needs of organizations and organizational structures, allowing institutions and corporations to effectively manage their intellectual property. Two, the ability to allow integration of third-party applications as extensions to the viewer. While competitively strategic in the early days of Second Life, this is now a limiting factor in the platform's usability in an age of interconnected data. This prevents more cutting-edge applications and experiences from being developed within the platform. Three, the requirement to constrain the development of thoughts and other non-playing characters based on the limitation of the Linden scripting language. Four, the requirement to constrain back-end programming to only allow the Linden scripting language. This eliminates opportunities for developing application programming interfaces between the platform and other cloud services using C, Python, Java, PHP. Pick your language. We can't do it. Five, the requirement to ensure that all external communications run through a proxy service in order to anonymize and redirect identifying information. Which is a concept which is now both outdated and self-limiting. And six, the ability to allow mesh editing directly in the viewer despite mesh being available in this platform for over 10 years. These are just some examples of potential innovative opportunities that have been allowed to go to waste while the rest of the digital landscape around us continues to evolve. And all of this before we start to think beyond the sim. So for example, enabling methods to allow real-world environments to be scanned and imported, allowing greater opportunities to address real-world problems and complex problems. In very real terms, in order to remain competitive, these platforms really need to be thinking in terms of delivering new features and functionalities once a quarter, not once a decade. Time is running short, and while the enemy is not at the gates, they are certainly visible on the horizon. Linden Lab has asked us as a community to challenge them to think outside the box on how the platform could be made better. Both Rocklith and VWEC are stepping up to that challenge and being forthright with the lab, not just in terms of feature requests that will improve our day-to-day experience, but also how to create additional opportunity that may be outside of people's experience with these platforms to date. Most people at this conference here know me. You know I'm dedicated to this community, and I've been a very strong supporter of education in virtual worlds. Rocklith has been engaging with Linden Labs over the past several months to put forward several new features and opportunities based on the survey that was conducted in July and August. Currently, we are confirming meeting schedules and getting agreement on the discussion platform to manage product development ideas. We are hoping that by giving everybody an opportunity to engage in these discussions, that we'll be able to continue to build our own path of least resistance to solve new problems in new ways. We'll be sending out additional information both through the VWEC and the upcoming VWBPE conference as to how we as a community can expand on new ideas for product development within the lab. It's an initial step and one in which I hope will position these types of environments to remain competitive in the face of stiff competition that's making its way into the mainstream over the next three to five years. Thank you very much, and I appreciate being here, and hopefully we have time for a couple of quick questions. Thank you, Kevin, for that wonderful presentation. Are there any questions from our audience looking at the chat here? A few people were whispering to me, but they weren't coming. They were they were comments about what is the maturity of quantum computing today? Is it do we already have supremacy or is that the promise? Depends on who you talk to at 57 qubits, which I think is the last number I saw. They're claiming that represents quantum supremacy. See, one of the challenges my cybersecurity students are always worried about that because they're saying once that reaches a certain level, we won't have encryption worth anything because we'll be able to solve it far too quickly. So, of course, that means a lot more work on our part, right? It does. Any other questions? Yeah, go ahead, Kevin, please. I was about to say, may you live in interesting times? I mean, this is just starting. The interesting thing about innovation, we have, sorry, just as a side note, the interesting thing about innovation. We've had all this technological innovation that's been going on for the past 20, 40 years, right? We're now getting to notwithstanding some of these other neat things that are coming along with quantum computing, we're now getting to the point where business and process innovation is going to start taking over in terms of being the key way in which we need to look at problems because technology is simply a tool, right? We're now at the point where we sort of have the tools, right? They're being improved as we go along, but we have the tools. Now we need to figure out how to use them appropriately. That, I think, is where the real innovation is going to come in over the next 10 to 20 years, not necessarily how the technology is going to evolve. That's wonderful. Well, thank you for the wonderful presentation. And let's see. Can I just jump in for a second? Absolutely. I think there's some folks in the audience too who are asking that kind of question, like in some parts of this conversation, very relevant. Directly to OpenSimulator, because, of course, it's had to be part of this whole technology path too, as technology has evolved around it. But I think there's some of this when you're talking about things like kind of the us, like some of it is this kind of call to Linden Lab. But I mean, I guess any of what part of it also kind of revolves back to the OpenSimulator for folks who are also focused in that platform. It does. There's collaboration as far as I'm aware. There's collaboration going on back and forth. So where goes the lab goes OpenSimulator type of thing, right? At the same time. At least for the viewer, yeah. Yeah. I mean, at the same time, OpenSimulator represents a lot of really unique opportunity to do things that the lab may never consider. So we could move the lab in a particular direction potentially at the same time. Some of these ideas might, the lab might not pick them up, but OpenSimulator might look at them and say, oh my God, why didn't we think about this and just start including them? We need to open up the conversation to get there. We need to understand what the business problems, the educational problems that we're trying to solve are, and then try to figure out how we want to innovate around that so that we're not trying to club it over the head saying, well, we've got this tool, let's apply it here. It needs to be more, I have a problem in which tools are available. And Second Life and OpenSimulator just simply might be one of those, or none of those at all depending on what the problem is. Well, thank you, Kevin, for a great presentation. As a reminder to our audience, you will want to check out the conference.opensimulator.org to see what is coming up on the conference schedule. You won't want to miss our next session, which begins at 5.30 p.m. in this keynote region, and it's entitled, Designing Educational Virtual Simulations. Also, we want to encourage you to visit the OSCC 21 Poster Expo in the OSCC Expo 3 region to find accompanying information on presentations and to explore the hypergrid tour resources in OSCC Expo 2 region, along with the sponsor and the crowd funder booths located throughout all of our OSCC Expo regions. Thank you again to you, Kevin, our speaker, and to the audience.