reduced by misfortune and misdeeds
to the status of one of those individuals who with a discreet manner
somewhere between a family doctor and a grocer place themselves at the
service of the public in an atmosphere of antiseptics. Mr. Murdoch was
not at all like this. He was a squat swarthy man with one very dark eye
that stared fixedly regardless of the expression of its fellow. Michael
could not make up his mind whether this eye were blind or not. He
rather hoped it was, but in any case its fierce blankness was very
disconcerting. Conversation between Michael and Mr. Murdoch was not very
lively, and Mrs. Murdoch's adjutant inquisitiveness made Michael the
more monosyllabic whenever her husband did commit himself to a direct
inquiry.

"I looked for you in the Horseshoe the other evening," said Michael
finally, at a loss how in any other way to give Mr. Murdoch an
impression that he took the faintest interest in his existence.

"In the Horseshoe?" repeated Mr. Murdoch, in surprise. "I never go to
the Horseshoe only when a friend asks me in to have one."

Michael saw Mrs. Murdoch frowning at him, and, perceiving that there was
a reason why her husband must not suppose she had been to the Horseshoe
on the evening of his arrival, he said he had gathered somehow, he did
not exactly know where or why or when, that Mr. Murdoch was often to be
found in the Horseshoe. He wished this awkward and unpleasant man would
leave him and cock his rolling eye anywhere else but in his room.

"Bit of a reader, aren't you?" inquired the chemist.

Michael admitted he read a good deal.

"Ever read Jibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?" continued the
chemist.

"Some of it."

Mr. Murdoch said in that case it was just as well he hadn't bought some
volumes he'd seen on a barrow in the Caledonian Road.

"Four-and-six, with two books out in the middle," he proclaimed.

Michael could merely nod his comment, though he racked his brains to
think of some remark that would betray a vestige of cordiality. Mr.
Murdoch got up to retire to the kitchen. He evidently did not find his
tenant sympathetic. Outside on the landing Michael heard him say to his
wife: "Stuck up la-di-da sort of a----, isn't he?"

Presently the wife came up again.

"How did you like my old man?"

"Oh, very much."

"Did you notice his eye?"

Michael said he had noticed something.

"His brother Fred did that for him."

She spoke proudly, as if Fred's act ha