Ivor blinked. “Well, show them in.”
When the door was again opened a scent of whisky came in first, then a man, a woman, and a dog.
Ivor laid down his pen, and rose; he had never seen any of them before, and immediately doubted whether he wanted to see any of them again. Never able, however, to be disagreeable at a moment’s notice, he waited defensively. The man, who might have been thirty-five, pale, warped, and thin, seemed to extract his face from the grip of nerves.
“Hearing you were down here, sir, and being in the printing trade, if you understand my meaning——”
Ivor nodded; he did not want to nod, but it seemed unavoidable; and he looked at the woman. Her face was buttoned, the most expressionless he had ever seen.
“Well?” he said.
The man’s lips, thin and down at one corner, writhed again.
“You being a well-known writer,” he said, and the scent of whisky deepened.
Ivor thought: ‘It wants courage to beg; it’s damp too. Perhaps he’s only primed himself.’