Save such knowledge as he had gained during two preliminary
visits to the centre of the world's earthenware manufacture, he knew
nothing of the Five Towns; practically, he had everything to learn. And
one may say that the Five Towns is not a subject that can be "got up" in
a day.
His place of business--or whatever high-class dentists choose to call
it--in Crown Square was quite ready for him when he arrived on the
Friday night: specimen "uppers" and "lowers" and odd teeth shining in
their glass case, the new black-and-gold door-plate on the door, and
the electric filing apparatus which he had purchased, in the
operating-room. Nothing lacked there. But his private lodgings were not
ready; at least, they were not what he, with his finicking Albanian
notions, called ready, and, after a brief altercation with his landlady,
he went off with a bag to spend the night at the Turk's Head Hotel. The
Turk's Head is the best hotel in Hanbridge, not excepting the new Hotel
Metropole (Limited, and German-Swiss waiters). The proof of its
excellence is that the proprietor, Mr Simeon Clowes, was then the Mayor
of Hanbridge, and Mrs Clowes one of the acknowledged leaders of
Hanbridge society.
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