She must certainly have informed
herself as to his name and condition, and Mr Cowlishaw thought that it
would have been a graceful act on her part to patronize him, as he had
patronized the Turk's Head. But no! Mayoresses, even the most tactful,
do not always do the right thing at the right moment.
Besides, she had doubtless gone, despite toothache, to the football
match with the Mayor, the new club being under the immediate patronage
of his Worship. All the potting world had gone to the football match.
Mr Cowlishaw would have liked to go, but it would have been madness to
quit the surgery on his opening day. So he sat and yawned, and peeped at
the crowd crowding to the match at two o'clock, and crowding back in the
gloom at four o'clock; and at a quarter past five he was reading a full
description of the carnage and the heroism in the football edition of
the _Signal_. Though Hanbridge had been defeated, it appeared from the
_Signal_ that Hanbridge was the better team, and that Rannoch, the new
Scotch centre-forward, had fought nobly for the town which had bought
him so dear.
Mr Cowlishaw was just dozing over the _Signal_ when there happened a
ring at his door.
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