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Bennett, Arnold, 1867-1931

"The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories"


He glanced about, but he did not look high enough to see that George was
watching him from a second-floor window of the Tiger, and he could not
hear Mary imploring George: "Do for goodness sake go back to him."
Ladies passed along the pavement, stifling their curiosity. At the back
of the Town Hall there began to collect the usual crowd of idlers who
interest themselves in the sittings of the police-court.
Then Georgie, bored with weeping, dropped off into slumber. Samuel Peel
saw that he could not, with dignity, lift the perambulator up the steps
into the porch of the Tiger, and so he began to wheel it cautiously down
the side-entrance into the Tiger yard. And in the yard he met George,
just emerging from the side-door on whose lamp is written the word
"Billiards."
"So sorry to have troubled you, uncle. But the wife's unwell, and I'd
forgotten something. Asleep, is he?"
George spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, with no hint whatever that he
bore ill-will against Samuel Peel for having robbed him of two hundred
a year. And Samuel felt as though he had robbed George of two hundred a
year.
"But--but," asked Samuel, "what are you doing here?"
"We're stopping here," said George.


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