nal_?"

"No."

"Neither did I," said Brindley.

At the same moment the moving pictures came to an end, the theatre
was filled with light, and the band began to play "God Save the King."
Brindley and Stirling were laughing. And, indeed, Brindley had scored,
this time, over the unparalleled card of the Five Towns.

"I make you a present of that," said Edward Henry. "But my wife's most
precious infant has to be cauterized, doctor," he added firmly.

"Got your car here?" Stirling questioned.

"No. Have you?"

"No."

"Well, there's the tram. I'll follow you later. I've some business
round this way. Persuade my wife not to worry, will you?"

And when a discontented Dr. Stirling had made his excuses and adieux
to Mr. Bryany, and Robert Brindley had decided that he could not leave
his crony to travel by tram-car alone, and the two men had gone, then
Edward Henry turned to Mr. Bryany.

"That's how I get rid of the doctor, you see!"

"But _has_ your child been bitten by a dog?" asked Mr. Bryany, acutely
perplexed.

"You'd almost think so, wouldn't you?" Edward Henry replied, carefully
non-committal. "What price going to the Turk's Head now?"

He remembered with satisfaction, and yet with misgiving, a remark made
to him, a judgment passed on him, by a very old woman very many years
before. This discerning hag, the Widow Hullins by name, had said to
him briefly, "Well, you're a queer 'un!"

III

Within five minutes he was following Mr. Bryany into a small parlour
on the first floor of the Turk's Head--a room with which he had no
previous acquaintance, though, like most industrious men of affairs in
metropolitan Hanbridge, he reckoned to know something about the Turk's
Head. Mr. Bryany turned up the gas--the Turk's Head took pride
in being a "hostelry," and, while it had accustomed itself to
incandescent mantles (on the ground floor), it had not yet conquered
a natural distaste for electricity--and Edward Henry saw a smart
dispatch-box, a dress-suit, a trouser-stretcher and other necessaries
of theatrical business life at large in the apartment.

"I've never seen this room before," said Edward Henry.

"Take your overcoat off and sit down, will you?" said Mr. Bryany,
as he turned to replenish the fire from a bucket. "It's my private
sitting-room. Whenever I am on my travels I always take a private
sitting-room. It pays, you know.... Of course I mean if I'm alone.
When I'm looking after Mr. Sachs, of cours