One of them was lit inside with the mellow glow of electric lights. As I stepped into the vestibule timidly, to enquire my way to Professor Langworth's house (for it was his I decided to seek out first), a group of fragrant, white-clad girls herded together in astonished tittering when they saw me. And I surely looked the tramp, dusty and soiled from my long ride.
I asked them the direction to Langworth's house, but they ignored me, and scattered. Turning in confusion, I ran into a man-student bodily ... excused myself ... the girls, standing further off, tittered again.
"Can you direct me to Professor Gustav Langworth's house?"
The student looked me over curiously. But he was of the right sort.
"Certainly. Come with me. I'm going that way. I'll show you where it is...."
In silence we descended the hill....
"That house, in there a bit, under the trees ... that is where the professor lives."
My knock set a dog barking inside ... the quick, insistent bark of a collie that romped against me, putting up its paws on me when the door was opened by a slim-bodied man of middle height. The man was dressed in a grey suit ... he had a kindly, smooth-shaven face except for a close-cropped pepper-and-salt moustache ... and grey-blue, quizzical, but kindly eyes.
"Here, Laddie, come here!" called the voice of a frail, little woman whose hair was white like wool, and like wool in texture. She sat crumpled up by an open gas fire of imitation logs. She Was wry-backed, her right shoulder thrust out into a discernible hunch.