The second was a visitor beyond Mr Cowlishaw's hopes, no other than Mrs Simeon Clowes, landlady of the Turk's Head and Mayoress of Hanbridge; a tall and well-built, handsome, downright woman, of something more than fifty and something less than sixty; the mother of five married daughters, the aunt of fourteen nephews and nieces, the grandam of seven, or it might be eight, assorted babies; in short, a lady of vast influence. After all, then, she had come to him! If only he could please her, he regarded his succession to his predecessor as definitely established and his fortune made. No person in Hanbridge with any yearnings for style would dream, he trusted, of going to any other dentist than the dentist patronized by Mrs Clowes.
She eyed him interrogatively and firmly. She probed into his character, and he felt himself pierced.
"You are Mr Cowlishaw?" she began.
"Good afternoon, Mrs Clowes," he replied. "Yes, I am. Can I be of service to you?"
"That depends," she said.
He asked her to step in, and in she stepped.
"Have you had any experience in taking teeth out?" she asked in the surgery. Her hand stroked her left cheek.
"Oh yes," he said eagerly. "But, of course, we try to avoid extraction as much as possible."
"If you're going to talk like that," she said coldly, and even bitterly, "I'd better go."
He wondered what she was driving at.