"Quite clean, Sir."
"No vermin?"
"The officers of the garrison come sometimes."
This took some thinking out. It had an ugly sound,
but I gathered that she meant that there could be no
question about the cleanliness since these gentlemen were
satisfied. So the bargain was struck, and I ordered tea
to be ready in an hour, while I went back to the station
to fetch up my luggage. A porter brought it up for
eightpence (saving fourpence on a cab, my boy!) and so I
found myself in the heart of Birchespool with a base of
operations secured. I looked out of the little window of
my lodgings at the reeking pots and grey sloping roofs,
with a spire or two spurting up among them, and I shook
my teaspoon defiantly at them. "You've got to conquer
me," said I, "or else I'm man enough to conquer you."
Now, you would hardly expect that a fellow would have
an adventure on his very first night in a strange
town; but I had--a trivial one, it is true, but fairly
exciting while it lasted. Certainly it reads more like
what might happen to a man in a book, but you may take it
from me that it worked out just as I set it down here.
When I had finished my tea, I wrote a few letters--
one to Cullingworth, and one to Horton. Then, as it was
a lovely evening, I determined to stroll out and see what
sort of a place it was upon which Fate had washed me up.
"Best begin as you mean to go on," thought I; so I donned
my frock-coat, put on my carefully-brushed top-hat, and
sallied forth with my very respectable metal-headed
walking stick in my hand.
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