"All but one," repeated the temporary barman with knowing emphasis. And he winked as he leant across the bar.
"Ah!"
"Their reverend ain't here—not much!"
"I don't suppose he is. And why is the squire doing this sort of thing on this scale?"
"Why, in honour of the victory, to be sure."
"What victory?"
"Why, the one we've just had in Egypt. Tel-el——but here that is, in the Bury Post, and a fair jaw-breaker, too."
It was the first newspaper which Robert Carlton had seen for several weeks. His Standard subscription had run out at mid-summer; he had never renewed it. The world had renounced him utterly, and so must he renounce the world. To live as he was living, and yet to have an ear for the busy hum—he could not do it. For already he recognized the startling truth: it was its very completeness which rendered his isolation endurable.
Yet his eyes glistened as he ran them down the stirring columns, and his tanned face wore a coppery glow as he returned the paper across the bar.
"Thanks very much," he said. "I am glad to have seen that."