“I see that it is after time,” I said, returning the smile, “but the queer people who seem to live hereabouts interest me very much.”
“I can’t wonder at that, sir!” said the landlady, laughing outright. “Chinamen and Spanish men and what-not. If some of the old gentry that lived here before the war could see it, they wouldn’t recognize the place, of that I am sure.”
“Ah, well,” said I, pausing at the step, “I shall hope to see more of Mr. Camber, and of yourself too, madam, for your ale is excellent.”
“Thank you, sir, I’m sure,” said the landlady much gratified, “but as to Mr. Camber, I really doubt if he would know you if you met him again. Not if he was sober, I mean.”
“Really?”
“Oh, it’s a fact, believe me. Just in the last six months or so he has started on the rampage like, but some of the people he has met in here and asked to call upon him have done it, thinking he meant it.”
“And they have not been well received?” said I, lingering.
“They have had the door shut in their faces!” declared Mrs. Wootton with a certain indignation. “He either does not remember what he says or does when he is in drink, or he pretends he doesn’t. Oh, dear, it’s a funny world. Well, good-day, sir.”
“Good-day,” said I, and came out of the Lavender Arms full of sympathy with the views of the “old gentry,” as outlined by Mrs. Wootton; for certainly it would seem that this quiet spot in the Surrey Hills had become a rallying ground for peculiar people.