United States or Bahrain ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Mr Squeers was standing in a box by one of the coffee-room fire-places, fitted with one such table as is usually seen in coffee-rooms, and two of extraordinary shapes and dimensions made to suit the angles of the partition.
He emerged, twenty minutes later, with his white bands twisted, his hat awry, and a smear of blood on the surplice he carried altogether a very unclerical-looking figure. On the way back to his inn he kept looking at his cut knuckles, and, arriving, called for a noggin of brandy. The hour struck: but John Romley sat on in the coffee-room staring stupidly at his knuckles.
He had now been two days in town, and was to go down after breakfast on the following morning so that he might reach home by Friday afternoon. But on that evening, just as he was going to bed, he was surprised by Lord Lufton coming into the coffee-room at his hotel. He walked in with a hurried step, his face was red, and it was clear that he was very angry.
It is only afterwards he begins to appreciate his specific injury. "Good Lord!" I felt as though somebody was pouring funk out of a can down the back of my neck. My legs became feeble. I had got the first intimation of what the disaster meant for me. There was that confounded boy sky high! I was utterly left. There was the gold in the coffee-room my only possession on earth.
He lay awake worrying himself about his friend, feeling Dudley's fall more acutely than he would have felt his own, and did not fall asleep until it was nearly daylight. In these circumstances he overslept himself, and it was eleven o'clock before he found himself in the hotel coffee-room, waiting for his breakfast.
I got worse and worse in my meditations, constantly reflecting "The Proofs," and reflecting that when Christmas drew nearer, and the Proofs were published, there could be no safety from hour to hour but that He might confront me in the Coffee-room, and in the face of day and his country demand his rights. It was November still, but the last echoes of the Guy Foxes had long ceased to reverberate.
After that truly comic joke I left the coffee-room in the company of my inseparable preacher. The next morning, as I was at breakfast with De la Haye, the boasting Provencal entered my room without taking off his hat, and said, "M. d'Arbela, I have something of importance to tell you; make haste and follow me. If you are afraid, you may take anyone you please with you.
The attorney, when they had arrived within a short distance of the office, directed Vernon to proceed alone, agreeing to meet him at a coffee-room in the neighborhood. On reaching the office, a new difficulty was presented. The inflexible guardian of Emily refused to allow Vernon to see her, stoutly persisting that De Guy would not permit it.
How different was the social atmosphere of the Oosterspoorweg Station! Not only were the porters and the officers civil, but there was an excellent restaurant connected with it, and the waiting-girls of the coffee-room were tidily dressed in French costume, spoke German, and were social, polite and accommodating. At 9:30, I left by train for Utrecht, which I reached at 10:35 p.m.
Finally, after hanging round the empty coffee-room for a while, I got nervous, and determined to go to morning service at St. Philip's. There would be plenty of time to get out to Bancroft Road afterward, and perhaps Kathleen would be at church and I could get a distant view of her. I walked round to the church. Service had begun, but I went in and sat down at the back.
Word Of The Day