“Well, gentlemen,” he observed, “I strolled in here to make friends with any of my new neighbours who might be around and make acquaintance with the place, so to speak, but I certainly didn’t expect to hear anything like this.”
“It’s a bad start, I’m afraid, sir,” the innkeeper regretted civilly, “but you’d have been bound to have heard of it before long.”
“Such a stir it did make,” the grocer reflected. “Every morning and every afternoon there was a fresh rumour, as you might say.”
“But not a single arrest,” Mr. Johnson repeated. “Most extraordinary!”
“I hope now that you know the worst as is to be told, sir,” Rawson ventured, “that you’ll soon settle down here and like the neighbourhood.”
Mr. Johnson inclined his head gravely.
“I have no doubt that I shall,” he declared. “In many respects the Great House suits me perfectly. It is just the sort of garden I want to have, the neighbourhood seems healthy, and it is not too far from the sea. I wish you good afternoon, gentlemen!”
There was a little chorus of farewells. The new tenant took his departure, swinging his stick and, though naturally a little thoughtful after the news he had heard, there was nothing in his manner to indicate that he intended to take it too seriously to heart. They watched him from behind the muslin curtains until he opened the gate which led into his gardens and disappeared.
“He do seem to me to have plenty of courage, and a proper man for the neighbourhood,” the innkeeper pronounced, wiping up his counter. “There is a-many might have been struck all of a heap at being told what we had to tell him.”
“Any sort of tenant is better than none,” the grocer sighed, “but a family, I must confess, is what I was hoping for.”