Still, he came to my whistle, and not forgetting the sack, I went round
to the front of the house, standing under the porch at the top of the
steps until presently the rain entirely ceased, the clouds broke, and
the sun shone in a feeble kind of way.

The first order of the day was breakfast, then to make my way to
Hazleton with the object of returning Jacintha's locket. With the sack
rolled up beneath my arm, with Patch running excitedly around me, I set
forth along the muddy road across the moor. Having left this behind and
followed a winding lane for some distance, we seemed to be approaching a
village. Passing one or two houses, we crossed over a railway bridge,
passed a dozen or more cottages, and then, at the corner of two roads, I
saw what appeared to be a kind of mixture between a temperance hotel and
a mission hall.

After the various escapades through which I had passed since leaving
Castlemore, my clothes were in a sad condition, my boots especially
being coated with mud, so that for a moment I shrank from entering the
building. Summoning courage, however, I pushed open the door and found
myself in a bare-looking room with several large illuminated texts on
the walls, and three wooden tables, at one of which a man was seated
drinking a cup of tea.

A clock over the mantelpiece showed that it was a quarter-past ten,
although I had thought it considerably later. As Patch followed me into
the room, leaving damp footmarks on the clean linoleum, a short
thin-faced woman, with fair hair drawn very tightly back, entered from
the opposite door with a wet dish in one hand and a cloth in the other.

'We can't have dogs in here!' she cried by way of greeting.

'Will it matter if I nurse him?' I asked.

'If he doesn't spoil my floor,' she answered, and as I took Patch up in
my arms she added, 'What is it you want?'

'I should like some breakfast.'

'Tea and bread and butter?' she asked.

'How much are eggs?' I inquired.

'Three-halfpence each. Tea a penny the cup, bread and butter a halfpenny
a slice.'

I made a hasty calculation in my mind, and being extremely hungry
determined to spend sixpence, though it made a rather serious inroad
into my remaining four shillings and a penny.

'I will have two boiled eggs, four slices of bread and butter, and a cup
of tea,' I answered. Soon afterwards, while I sat with Patch on my
knees, the other customer left the room. When the woman returned with my
breakfast and r