I smothered an oath.
‘Is he clean-shaved?’ I tried him again.
‘Clean-shaved?’ he repeated, with the same air of anxious candour.
‘Good heaven, man, don’t repeat my words like a parrot!’ I cried. ‘Tell me what the man was like: it is of the first importance that I should be able to recognise him.’
‘I’m trying to, Mr. Anne. But clean-shaved? I don’t seem to rightly get hold of that p’int. Sometimes it might appear to me like as if he was; and sometimes like as if he wasn’t. No, it wouldn’t surprise me now if you was to tell me he ’ad a bit o’ whisker.’
‘Was the man red-faced?’ I roared, dwelling on each syllable.
‘I don’t think you need go for to get cross about it, Mr. Anne!’ said he. ‘I’m tellin’ you every blessed thing I see! Red-faced? Well, no, not as you would remark upon.’
A dreadful calm fell upon me.
‘Was he anywise pale?’ I asked.
‘Well, it don’t seem to me as though he were. But I tell you truly, I didn’t take much heed to that.’