The first glance was not reassuring. It was perhaps more Greek than Colonial or Early English or Late Dutch. Four high wooden boxes, painted brown, were set up on end—Doric columns these—supporting a pediment of like material and color. Half-way up these supports hung a balcony, where the Fourth of July orator always stands when he addresses his fellow citizens. Old, of course, I said to myself—early part of this century. Not exactly moss-covered and inn-like, as I expected to find, but inside it's all right.
"Please take in that bag and fur overcoat." This to the driver, in a cheery tone.
The clerk was leaning over the counter, chewing a toothpick. Evidently he took me for a drummer, for he stowed the bag behind the desk, and hung the overcoat up on a nail in a side room opening out of the office, and within reach of his eye.
When I registered my name it made no perceptible change in his manner. He said, "Want supper?" with a tone in his voice that convinced me he had not heard a word of the Event which brought me to West Norrington—I being the Event.
"No, not now. I would like you to send to my room in half an hour a broiled chicken, some celery, and any vegetable which you can get ready—and be good enough to put a pint of Burgundy"——
I didn't get any further. Something in his manner attracted me. I had not looked at him with any degree of interest before. He had been merely a medium for trunk check, room key, and ice water—nothing more.
Now I did. I saw a young man—a mean-looking young man—with a narrow, squeezed face, two flat glass eyes sewed in with red cotton, and a disastrous complexion. His hair was brushed like a barber's, with a scooping curl over the forehead; his neck was long and thin—so long that his apple looked over his collar's edge. This collar ran down to a white shirt decorated with a gold pin, the whole terminating in a low-cut velvet vest.
"Supper at seven," he said.
This, too, came with a jerk.
"Yes, I know, but I haven't eaten anything since breakfast, and don't want to wait until"——