The doctor bent down.
“ ‘Francis Beveridge,’ ” he said. “That’s all I see.”
“And that’s all I see,” said Mr Beveridge. “Now what can you read here? I am not troubling you?”
He held out his handkerchief as he spoke.
“Not a bit,” laughed the doctor, “but I only see ‘Francis Beveridge’ here too, I’m afraid.”
“Everything has got it,” said Mr Beveridge, shaking his head, it would be hard to say whether humorously or sadly. “ ‘Francis Beveridge’ on everything. It follows, I suppose, that I am Francis Beveridge?”
“What else?” asked Escott, who was much amused.
“That’s just it. What else?” said the other. He smiled a peculiarly charming smile, thanked the doctor with exaggerated gratitude, and strolled out again.
“He is a rum chap,” reflected Escott.
And indeed in the outside world he might safely have been termed rather rum, but here in this backwater, so full of the oddest flotsam, his waywardness was rather less than the average. He had, for instance, a diverting habit of modifying the time, and even the tune, of the hymns on Sunday, and he confessed to having kissed all the nurses and housemaids except three. But both Escott and Sherlaw declared they had never met a more congenial spirit. Mr Beveridge’s game of billiards was quite remarkable even for Clankwood, where the enforced leisure of many of the noblemen and gentlemen had made them highly proficient on the spot; he showed every promise, on his rare opportunities, of being an unusually entertaining small hour, whisky-and-soda raconteur; in fact, he was evidently a man whose previous career, [pg 23] whatever it might have been (and his own statements merely served to increase the mystery round this point), had led him through many humorous by-paths, and left him with few restrictive prejudices.