“Certainly, sir. You can turn the lock if you’re like that, you know. Any time.”
“A very good idea,” said the stranger.
“This straw, sir, if I might remark-”
“Don’t. If the straw makes trouble put it down in the bill.”
And he mumbled at her-words suspiciously like curses.
He was so odd, standing there, so aggressive and explosive, bottle in one hand and test-tube in the other, that Mrs. Hall was quite alarmed. But she was a resolute woman.
“In which case, I should like to know, sir, what you consider-”
“A shilling-put down a shilling. Surely a shilling is enough?”
“So be it,” said Mrs. Hall, taking up the table-cloth and beginning to spread it over the table.
He turned and sat down, with his coat-collar toward her.
All the afternoon he worked with the door locked and, as Mrs. Hall testifies, for the most part in silence. But once there was a smash of a bottle and then a rapid pacing athwart the room. She went to the door and listened.
“I can’t go on,” he was raving. “I can’t go on. Three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand! Cheated! All my life it may take me!.. Patience! Patience indeed!.. Fool! fool!”
There was a noise in the bar, and Mrs. Hall had very reluctantly to leave. When she returned the room was silent again. It was all over; the stranger had resumed work.
When she took in his tea she saw broken glass in the corner of the room under the mirror, and a golden stain that had been carelessly wiped. She drew attention to it.
“Put it down in the bill,” snapped her visitor. “For God’s sake don’t worry me. If there’s damage done, put it down in the bill!”
* * *
“I’ll tell you something,” said Fearenside, mysteriously. It was late in the afternoon, and they were in the little beer-shop.
“Well?” said Teddy Henfrey.
“This chap you’re speaking of, what my dog bit. Well-he’s black. Leastways, his legs are. I saw through the tear of his trousers and the tear of his glove. Well-there wasn’t none. Just blackness. I tell you, he’s as black as my hat.”
“Oh God!” said Henfrey. “But his nose is pink!”
“That’s true,” said Fearenside. “I know that. And I tell you what I think. That man is piebald, Teddy. Black here and white there-in patches. And he’s ashamed of it. I’ve heard of such things before. And it’s the common way with horses, as any one can see.”
Chapter IV
Mr. Cuss Interviews the Stranger
I have told the circumstances of the stranger’s arrival in Iping, in order that the curious impression he created may be understood by the reader. Hall did not like him, and he talked of getting rid of him; but he avoided his visitor as much as possible.
“Wait till the summer,” said Mrs. Hall sagely, “when the artists will come. Then we’ll see.”
The stranger did not go to church, and indeed made no difference between Sunday and the irreligious days, even in costume. He worked, as Mrs. Hall thought, very fitfully. Some days he would come down early and be continuously busy. On others he would rise late, smoke, and sleep in the armchair by the fire. His temper was very uncertain. He seemed under a chronic irritation of the greatest intensity. His habit of talking to himself in a low voice grew steadily, but though Mrs. Hall listened conscientiously she could not understand what she heard.
He rarely went out by daylight, but at twilight he would went out invisibly, whether the weather were cold or not, and he chose the loneliest paths. His spectacles and ghastly bandaged face under his hat frightened labourers. Children as saw him at nightfall dreamt of devils, and it seemed doubtful whether he disliked boys more than they disliked him.
