a hopeless case.'

But obviously she was very proud of the incurable lunatic.

'But you're a book-collector!' I exclaimed, so struck by these feats of
extravagance in a modest house that I did not conceal my amazement.

'Did you think I collected postage-stamps?' the husband retorted. 'No,
_I_'m not a book-collector, but our doctor is. He has a few books, if
you like. Still, I wouldn't swop him; he's much too fond of fashionable
novels.'

'You know you're always up his place,' said the wife; 'and I wonder
what _I_ should do if it wasn't for the doctor's novels!' The doctor
was evidently a favourite of hers.

'I'm not always up at his place,' the husband contradicted. 'You know
perfectly well I never go there before midnight. And HE knows perfectly
well that I only go because he has the best whisky in the town. By the
way, I wonder whether he knows that Simon Fuge is dead. He's got one of
his etchings. I'll go up.'

'Who's Simon Fuge?' asked Mrs Brindley.

'Don't you remember old Fuge that kept the Blue Bell at Cauldon?'

'What? Simple Simon?'

'Yes. Well, his son.'

'Oh! I remember. He ran away from home once, didn't he, and his mother
had a port-wine stain on her left cheek? Oh, of course. I remember him
perfectly. He came down to the Five Towns some years ago for his aunt's
funeral. So he's dead. Who told you?'

'Mr Loring.'

'Did you know him?' she glanced at me.

'I scarcely knew him,' said I. 'I saw it in the paper.'

'What, the Signal?'

'The Signal's the local rag,' Mr Brindley interpolated. 'No. It's in
the Gazette.'

'The Birmingham Gazette?'

'No, bright creature--the Gazette,' said Mr Brindley.

'Oh!' She seemed puzzled.

'Didn't you know he was a painter?' the husband condescendingly
catechized.

'I knew he used to teach at the Hanbridge School of Art,' said Mrs
Brindley stoutly. 'Mother wouldn't let me go there because of that.
Then he got the sack.'

'Poor defenceless thing! How old were you?'

'Seventeen, I expect.'

'I'm much obliged to your mother.'

'Where did he die?' Mrs Brindley demanded.

'At San Remo,' I answered. 'Seems queer him dying at San Remo in
September, doesn't it?'

'Why?'

'San Remo is a winter place. No one ever goes there before December.'

'Oh, is it?' the lady murmured negligently. 'Then that would be just
like Simon Fuge. _I_ was never afraid of him,' she added, in a defiant
tone, and with a delicious inconsequence that choked her husband in t