The Female of the Species by Sapper (Herman Cyril McNeile)

Author:Sapper (Herman Cyril McNeile) [Sapper (Herman Cyril McNeile)]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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XI. — IN WHICH I GO TO FRIAR'S HEEL BY DAY

Up to this point the telling of my story has been easy, even if the manner of the telling has been crude and poor. But from now on it becomes more difficult. Things happened quickly, and we were all of us scattered in a way we had not been before. In fact, for the greater part of the time, the only member of the bunch who I was able to talk to was Toby Sinclair. But I will do my best to make clear the happenings that led up to that last astounding dénouement, which even now seems like some fantastic nightmare to me. And if some of those happenings are boring I can only crave pardon, and assure my readers that it is necessary to write of them for the proper understanding of what is to follow.

I arrived then, at the Amesbury Castle in time for a late lunch. It was a typical hotel of the English country town, relying more, I should imagine, on lunches and dinners to pay its way than on people taking a bed. The food was of that grim nature which one associates with hotels of the type—plain and tough. An aged waiter, with most of yesterday's ration on his shirt front, presided over the dining-room, and looked at me in a pained way as I came in.

"Very late, sir," he remarked.

"And I am very hungry," I answered cheerfully. He polished a menu card morosely on his trousers.

"Mutton hoff," he said. "Beef, 'am, tongue—and pertaters. Been a run on the mutton today," he added confidentially.

I gazed at the flies making a run on the beef and decided on ham and tongue.

"Many people staying here?" I asked.

"Full up for lunch," he said. "And the hotel be fairly full, too. A bunch of people came last night. Lumme! 'ere's another."

I glanced at the doer to see Toby Sinclair coming in.

"Splendid," he cried, in a high voice that nearly made me laugh. "Food, waiter, for the inner man, and then to resume my search. Tell me, have you seen a Phragmatobia fuliginosa?"

The waiter recoiled a step.

"A'ow much," he demanded. "There's beef, 'am, tongue and pertaters."

"And only this morning," went on Toby, "I am convinced I perceived a Psecadia pusiella. Members, my dear sir," he said to me, "of the great family of lepidoptera. In other words butterflies."

"Beef, 'am or tongue," said the waiter resignedly. "The mutton's hoff."

"Ham, waiter, with a fragment of chutney. You are, sir," he turned again to me, "on a walking tour perhaps?"

"That is my idea," I said. "But I propose to make this hotel my headquarters."

"You may possibly care to come out with me once or twice. My name is Stanton—Professor Stanton."

"Mine is Seymour," I told him.

"Well, Mr Seymour—" He broke off suddenly. "Waiter, I asked for ham and chutney, not the mummified sole of a shoe covered with glue."

"The tongue is worse," said the waiter drearily. "And that there chutney has been here two years to my certain knowledge.

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