Bryany.
"That's how I get rid of the doctor, you see!"
"But _has_ your child been bitten by a dog?" asked Mr. Bryany, acutely
perplexed.
"You'd almost think so, wouldn't you?" Edward Henry replied, carefully
non-committal. "What price going to the Turk's Head now?"
He remembered with satisfaction, and yet with misgiving, a remark made
to him, a judgment passed on him, by a very old woman very many years
before. This discerning hag, the Widow Hullins by name, had said to
him briefly, "Well, you're a queer 'un!"
III
Within five minutes he was following Mr. Bryany into a small parlour
on the first floor of the Turk's Head--a room with which he had no
previous acquaintance, though, like most industrious men of affairs in
metropolitan Hanbridge, he reckoned to know something about the Turk's
Head. Mr. Bryany turned up the gas--the Turk's Head took pride
in being a "hostelry," and, while it had accustomed itself to
incandescent mantles (on the ground floor), it had not yet conquered
a natural distaste for electricity--and Edward Henry saw a smart
dispatch-box, a dress-suit, a trouser-stretcher and other necessaries
of theatrical business life at large in the apartment.
"I've never seen this room before," said Edward Henry.
"Take your overcoat off and sit down, will you?" said Mr. Bryany,
as he turned to replenish the fire from a bucket.
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