CHAPTER VI
SIDELIGHTS
The association of coal with potatoes is one upon which I have frequently speculated, without arriving at any more satisfactory explanation than that both products are of the earth, earthy. Of the connection itself Barnard's practise furnished several instances besides Mrs. Jablett's establishment in Fleur-de-Lys Court, one of which was a dark and mysterious cavern a foot below the level of the street, that burrowed under an ancient house on the west side of Fetter Lane—a crinkly, timber house of the three-decker type that leaned back drunkenly from the road as if about to sit down in its own back yard.
Passing this repository of the associated products about ten o'clock in the morning, I perceived in the shadows of the cavern no less a person than Miss Oman. She saw me at the same moment, and beckoned peremptorily with a hand that held a large Spanish onion. I approached with a deferential smile.
"What a magnificent onion, Miss Oman! and how generous of you to offer it to me——"
"I wasn't offering it to you. But there! Isn't it just like a man——-"
"Isn't what just like a man?" I interrupted. "If you mean the onion——"
"I don't!" she snapped; "and I wish you wouldn't talk such a parcel of nonsense. A grown man and a member of a serious profession, too! You ought to know better."
"I suppose I ought," I said reflectively. And she continued:
"I called in at the surgery just now."