The Project Gutenberg eBook, Nobody's Man, by E. Phillips Oppenheim

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Title: Nobody's Man

Author: E. Phillips Oppenheim

Release Date: December 19, 2005 [eBook #17356]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOBODY'S MAN***

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NOBODY'S MAN

by

E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

1921

NOBODY'S MAN

CHAPTER I

Andrew Tallente stepped out of the quaint little train on to the
flower-bedecked platform of this Devonshire hamlet amongst the hills, to
receive a surprise so immeasurable that for a moment he could do nothing
but gaze silently at the tall, ungainly figure whose unpleasant smile
betrayed the fact that this meeting was not altogether accidental so far
as he was concerned.

"Miller!" he exclaimed, a little aimlessly.

"Why not?" was the almost challenging reply. "You are not the only
great statesman who needs to step off the treadmill now and then."

There was a certain quiet contempt in Tallente's uplifted eyebrows. The
contrast between the two men, momentarily isolated on the little
platform, was striking and extreme. Tallente had the bearing, the voice
and the manner which were his by heritage, education and natural
culture. Miller, who was the son of a postman in a small Scotch town,
an exhibitioner so far as regards his education, and a mimic where
social gifts were concerned, had all the aggressive bumptiousness of the
successful man who has wit enough to perceive his shortcomings. In his
ill-chosen tourist clothes, untidy collar and badly arranged tie, he
presented a contrast to his companion of which he seemed, in a way,
bitterly conscious.

"You are staying near here?" Tallente enquired civilly.

"Over near Lynton. Dartrey has a cottage there. I came down
yesterday."

"Surely you were in Hellesfield the day before yesterday?"

Miller smiled ill-naturedly.

"I was," he admitted, "and I flatter myself that I was able to make the
speech which settled your chances in that direction."

Tallente permitted a slight note of scorn to creep into his tone.

"It was not your eloquence," he said, "or your arguments, which brought