It was a wonderful day and somewhere
streams were flowing under dark protecting trees, and the grass was thick
in cool hollows and the woods were so dense that no blue sky reached the
moss, but only the softest twilight ... and old Aitchinson, the town's
solicitor, with his nutcracker face, his snuffling nose, his false
teeth--and the tightly-closed office, the piles of paper, the ink, the
silly view from the dusty windows of Treliss High Street--and life always
in the future to be like that until he died.
But Peter showed no emotion.
"Very well, father--What day do I go?"
"Monday--nine o'clock."
Nothing more was said. At any rate Aitchinson and his red tape and his
moral dust would fill the day--no time then to dwell on these dark passages
and Mrs. Trussit's frightened eyes and the startled jump of the marble
clock in the dining-room just before it struck the hour....
II
And so for weeks it proved. Aitchinson demanded no serious consideration.
He was a hideous little man with eyes like pins, shaggy eyebrows, a nose
that swelled at the end and was pinched by the sharpest of pince-nez,
cheeks that hung white and loose except when he was hungry or angry, and
then they were tight and red, a little body rather dandily dressed with
a flowered waistcoat, a white stock, a skirted coat and pepper-and-salt
trousers--and last of all, tiny feet, of which he was inordinately proud
and with which, like Agag, he always walked delicately.
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