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Doctor Syn spent a very comfortable night at Haxell’s, in the Strand. It was a quiet and comfortable house, with good plain cooking and an excellent cellar, if you were popular with the landlord. Doctor Syn was popular with the landlord, who respected a country parson who seemed to be quite a co
Taking leave of the happy old student, Doctor Syn entered the shop and in a few minutes was handling tenderly the fine copy of Virgil referred to.
‘As I received it, I deliver it,’ explained the bookseller, ‘though I should like to remove these untidy slips of paper which some reader has cluttered it up with. Book-marks, no doubt. But they spoil the appearance of such a beautiful piece of printing. The fellow has undoubtedly torn up an old letter for the purpose. I ca
Doctor Syn had already examined one of the slips in question, and with a twinkle of satisfaction in his eyes he answered: ‘This reader was at least not barbaric enough to mark the book with his own notes. Do not trouble to remove the markers. I will take them with the book. ’Twill be interesting to see if he has pe
A quarter of an hour later the volume lay on the table beside Doctor Syn as he breakfasted in Haxell’s Coffee Room whose windows looked out upon the busy Strand. His walk had put him in good appetite and he thoroughly enjoyed a generous helping of grilled ham and eggs. But while waiting for the second cover, he picked up the book, and a close observer might well have been surprised to see him paying far more attention to what was written on the book-markers than upon the exquisite volume itself. He would have been more surprised still had he known what was written on those same book-markers. But why should anyone pay the slightest attention to such a normal sight as a scholarly cleric engrossed upon the French translation of a classic while enjoying a typical English breakfast?
And so, at five minutes past ten the warning notes of a coach-horn cleared the traffic in front of Haxell’s, as with a flourish and jingling of harness the Dover coach pulled up, and Doctor Syn stepped inside.
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Yet another traveller had been awakened that morning in time to make preparation for the same journey. In the large bedroom of the best suite that the ‘Golden Keys’ could offer, propped up by pillows in a gigantic four-poster, sat a little old lady. From beneath the frills of a modish night-cap twinkled a pair of intelligent bird-like eyes, while over the rim of a tankard of small ale her aristocratic nose made her look like the proverbial early bird in search of the worm.
The small, shapely hands holding the tankard seemed to be weighed down by the vast collection of rings that she wore on almost every finger, while at her wrists i
Finishing her small ale with a gusto slightly incongruous for so frail a lady she put down the tankard and gave the tapestry bell-pull a vigorous jerk, which brought scurrying feet along the corridor, and an answering tap upon the door. The old lady raised herself and prodded the white dog with a playful bejewelled finger. ‘Come now, Mister Pitt. ’Tis time for your morning perambulation.’ Then, speaking to the maid: ‘Lisette, open the door for Mister Pitt, and tell the chambermaid to take him downstairs and see that he amuses himself in the yard. And see that he really amuses himself, for the poor gentleman will be cooped up in a stuffy old coach all day, and you know what happened on the journey to Aberdeen on my best tartan travelling-rug.’