Wednesday 6 November 2013

on the floor. On the staircase he paused and gazing absently at Dixon repeated:

----Pawn to king's bloody fourth.

----Put it that way if you like, Dixon said.

He had a quiet toneless voice and urbane manners and on a finger of his plump clean hand he displayed at moments a signet ring.

As they crossed the hall a man of dwarfish stature came towards them. Under the dome of his tiny hat his unshaven face began to smile with pleasure and he was heard to murmur. The eyes were melancholy as those of a monkey.

----Good evening, gentlemen, said the stubble-grown monkeyish face.

----Warm weather for March, said Cranly. They have the windows open upstairs.

Dixon smiled and turned his ring. The blackish, monkey-puckered face pursed its human mouth with gentle pleasure and its voice purred:

----Delightful weather for March. Simply delightful.

----There are two nice young ladies upstairs, captain, tired of waiting, Dixon said.

Cranly smiled and said kindly:

----The captain has only one love: sir Walter Scott. Isn't that so, captain?

----What are you reading now, captain? Dixon asked. The Bride of Lammermoor?

----I love old Scott, the flexible lips said, I think he writes something lovely. There is no writer can touch sir Walter Scott.

He moved a thin shrunken brown hand gently in the air in time to his praise and his thin quick eyelids beat often over his sad eyes.

Sadder to Stephen's ear was his speech: a genteel accent,

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