He seemed to know it all so well, the sleepy sloping street with the quaintly irregular houses, the little shops with curved bow windows thrusting out on to the pavement, and the low pitched doorways one gained by climbing perhaps three or more worn stone steps. The Inn, the sign of which swung from a beam that spanned the street. Yes surely he had seen it all before—on some motoring trip perhaps—and yet—and yet in a way it was strangely different, as the barn had differed from his expectations. For a time with a queer puzzled sensation, he stood, and then he came back to realities. He had journeyed here to see some house agent—what was his name?
Dalabey! yes Dalabey!
"Boy," he called to a dusty white haired urchin playing with a dog. "Boy, which is Mr. Dalabey's, the house agent?"
The boy pointed. "That be Dalabey's up they steps be Dalabey's shop."
So Allan went up the steps and found himself in the office of Dalabey and Son.
Mr. Dalabey, a stout, red haired man, wearing no coat, was talking with a visitor, he looked at Allan.
"My father had a letter about a house, an old house, he asked me——"
"Ah yes, to be sure, the house as Mr. Van Norden be after, well there be nothing settled as yet, sir," Mr. Dalabey said as he reached up for a huge key.
"I'll be ten minutes about," he said, "if you'll wait here while I get finished with this gentleman!"
"Couldn't I go on? If you direct me I might find it."