“Good gracious, whatever—” began Horace’s spouse, appearing in vast surprise at the inner door.
Mr. Lock, perceiving a second female rising from a chair in the back parlour, began to speak loudly and rapidly.
“We’ve just found this chap lying ’elpless at the corner of the road,” he stated. “We brought ’im ’ere because ’e said ’e wanted to find a Mrs. Jackson, sir, and we thought that p’r’aps you might know the good lady. Though whether she’d care to admit to knowing him, I shouldn’t like to say, her being a most respectable lady, by all accounts.”
“’E must ’ave been drinking the ’ole of the day!” observed Mr. Clark, in tones of righteous contempt. “I see ’im myself go into the ‘Jolly Sailors,’ and the ‘Blue Lion,’ and the ‘Cutlass and Cannon’.”
“I see ’im myself this morning,” said Horace. “I see him come out of the station, and I thought ’e looked a pretty queer fish. ’E come straight out of the station and went into the ‘Railway Inn.’”
“I see ’im leave the ‘Flag and Pennant’ at dinner-time,” contributed Mr. Lock. “’E left there to go to the ‘Royal George’.”
“Brandy, too!” intoned Mr. Clark, sepulchrally. “You just bend down and sniff. If you can’t smell brandy, I’ll—”
Mr. Briblett, raising his head with extreme difficulty, partly opened his eyes.
“Where am I?” he demanded, weakly. “I’m—I’m not at all well! I feel ill—very ill!”
“So I should think!” concurred Mr. Lock. “And the language he was using!”