“Anything else?”
“That’s all she said about you.”
He stretched himself, enjoying luxuriously the end of his cigarette.
“But,” going on with relish, “I was able to take her down a peg before she went. Never said nothing about it until just as she was going, and then I told her, what I’m now going to tell you, my dear, and that is this: your father’s been taken back by his old firm, and he started earning good money this very day. Wherever are you off to in such a hurry?”
The boy snatched his cap from the wooden peg. He strode out by the front door, and walked away towards Dalston Junction, frowning.
VIII—JULES ZWINGER
The probability is that, if you arrive by train and see first the Restaurant of the Station, you will stay at Zwinger’s; if you come into the town by road, crossing the bridge that spans the harbour, and see first the Restaurant of Zwinger, you will put up at the Restaurant of the Station.
Assuming that you stay at Zwinger’s, this is what happens. The carrier of your bag (who looks like a fisherman, and walks as a fisherman, but is not a fisherman) throws it down outside the restaurant, and, sinking on one of the green iron chairs, groans aloud a protest against the scheme by which one has to work ere one can gain five pence; he rolls a cigarette of black tobacco, and strikes a match which makes other customers choke and cough. Then comes, leisurely, one of the Misses Zwinger, accepting salutations with the austere air of a lady bored by deference. Miss Zwinger, without asking the desires or wishes of the new arrival, engages in swift and shrill altercation with a dog, hitherto inoffensive, and occupied with the duties of explorer at the kerb; the dog goes, but, at a safe distance, expresses an opinion by four sharp barks, that bring from every corner of the triangular market-place, and especially from the Town Hall at the base, several dogs, to whom he explains the grievance.
“You require?”
Miss Zwinger calls her sister from the sanded floor interior to help with the task of fending off an insurgent boarder. The restaurant is full; you may be able to engage a furnished room opposite; why not go to the hotel out in the forest? It is preferred, at this season, to take only those who wish to stay for a month; would a double-bedded room suit? Finally, having finished the duet, they leave, with a twirl of skirts, giving the centre of the stage, so to speak, to a short, grim, black-capped man who, hands deep in trousers pockets, talks as one giving an imitation of distant thunder. Outside clients rise from their chairs, inside customers put down ribald journals with pictures intended to be amusing, and stroll out to enjoy themselves. Here comes the final test of the novice.