"You see that keyhole," said the alderman, startlingly, pointing to a
worn rusty keyhole in the middle of the vast double-doors of the
carriage-house.
Brindley admitted that he did see it.
The next moment there was an explosion, and the alderman glanced at the
smoking revolver, blew on it suspiciously, and put it back into his
celebrated hip-pocket.
Brindley, whom the explosion had intimidated, examined the double-doors,
and found no mark.
"Where did you hit?" he inquired.
"Through the keyhole," said the alderman, after a pause. He opened the
doors, and showed half a load of straw in the dusk behind them.
"The bullet's imbedded in there," said he.
"Well," said Brindley, "that's not so bad, that isn't."
"There aren't five men in the Five Towns who could do that," the
alderman said.
And as he said it he looked, with his legs spread apart, and his
short-tailed coat, and his general bluff sturdiness, almost as old
English as he could have desired to look. Except that his face had paled
somewhat. Mr Brindley thought that that transient pallor had been caused
by legitimate pride in high-class revolver-shooting.
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