Riceyman StepsArnold Bennett's superb London novelboth a story about one grim household and a panorama of the life of a great city. Henry Earlforward, a shabby Clerkenwell bookseller, has retired from life to devote himself (and his wife Violet) to a consuming passion for money. Miserliness becomes a fatal illness, and Bennett provides a terrifying description of its ravages. However, the book's grim situation is alleviated through the character of Elsie, whose