"And now, Mr. Lange, let us go over to the Rose and Crown and have some bad beer."
21
When Robert went out to The Franchise, three days later, to drive the Sharpes over to Norton for the Assizes on the morrow, he found an almost bridal atmosphere about the place. Two absurd tubs of yellow wallflowers stood at the top of the steps; and the dark hall gleamed with flowers like a church decorated for a wedding.
"Nevil!" Marion said, with an explanatory wave of her hand to the massed glory. "He said the house should be en fete."
"I wish that I had thought of it," Robert said.
"After the last few days, it surprises me that you can think at all. If it were not for you, it is not rejoicing we should be today!"
"If it weren't for a man called Bell, you mean."
"Bell?"
"Alexander Bell. He invented the telephone. If it weren't for that invention we should still be groping in the dark. It will be months before I can look at a telephone without blenching."
"Did you take turn about?"