“B—­b—­bran—­brandy,” he said, and then stooped to look for the shilling.

He had the little sawdusted bar to himself; what company there was—­carters and labourers and the small tradesmen of the neighbourhood—­was gathered in the farther compartment, beyond the space where the white-haired landlady moved among her taps and bottles.  Oleron sat down on a hardwood settee with a perforated seat, drank half his brandy, and then, thinking he might as well drink it as spill it, finished it.

Then he fell to wondering which of the men whose voices he heard across the public-house would undertake the removal of his effects on the morrow.

In the meantime he ordered more brandy.

For he did not intend to go back to that room where he had left the candle burning.  Oh no!  He couldn’t have faced even the entry and the staircase with the broken step—­certainly not that pith-white, fascinating room.  He would go back for the present to his old arrangement, of workroom and separate sleeping-quarters; he would go to his old landlady at once—­presently—­when he had finished his brandy—­and see if she could put him up for the night.  His glass was empty now....

He rose, had it refilled, and sat down again.

And if anybody asked his reason for removing again?  Oh, he had reason enough—­reason enough!  Nails that put themselves back into wood again and gashed people’s hands, steps that broke when you trod on them, and women who came into a man’s place and brushed their hair in the dark, were reasons enough!  He was querulous and injured about it all.  He had taken the place for himself, not for invisible women to brush their hair in; that lawyer fellow in Lincoln’s Inn should be told so, too, before many hours were out; it was outrageous, letting people in for agreements like that!

A cut-glass partition divided the compartment where Oleron sat from the space where the white-haired landlady moved; but it stopped seven or eight inches above the level of the counter.  There was no partition at the farther bar.  Presently Oleron, raising his eyes, saw that faces were watching him through the aperture.  The faces disappeared when he looked at them.

He moved to a corner where he could not be seen from the other bar; but this brought him into line with the white-haired landlady.

She knew him by sight—­had doubtless seen him passing and repassing; and presently she made a remark on the weather.  Oleron did not know what he replied, but it sufficed to call forth the further remark that the winter had been a bad one for influenza, but that the spring weather seemed to be coming at last....  Even this slight contact with the commonplace steadied Oleron a little; an idle, nascent wonder whether the landlady brushed her hair every night, and, if so, whether it gave out those little electric cracklings, was shut down with a snap; and Oleron was better....