Herbert George Wells 
The Cone 

‘The Cone’ is a short story by H. G. Wells, first published in 1895 in ‘Unicorn’. It was intended to be ’the opening chapter of a sensational novel set in the Five Towns’, later abandoned.The story is set at an ironworks in Stoke-on-Trent, in Staffordshire. An artist is there to depict the industrial landscape; the manager of the ironworks discovers his affair with his wife, and takes him on a tour of the factory, where there are dangerous features.