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Then we came to a gate without a lodge, the cabman got down and opened it, and we were in the visible presence of Mr. Warren's villa. The style is the Scottish Baronial; all pepper-pots, gables and crowsteps. "What a lovely old place!" I said to my companion. "Have you secret passages and sliding panels and dark turnpike stairs? What a house for conspiracies!
The servants then, seeing all the guests seated, pass red and black pepper, in silver pepper-pots, on a silver tray. A small, peculiarly-shaped fork is laid by each plate, at the right hand, for the oysters. Although some ladies now have all their forks laid on the left hand of the plate, this, however, is not usual.
An unfortunate quarrel between our pepper-pots marked the outset of our new stage. Challenger had from the moment of joining us issued directions to the whole party, much to the evident discontent of Summerlee. "May I ask, sir," said Summerlee, with vicious calm, "in what capacity you take it upon yourself to issue these orders?" Challenger glared and bristled.
"As it stands, this tomb is a simple misfortune which might befall any of us; we should not grieve over it too much. What would our feelings be if a Congressional committee reconstructed it of white marble with Gothic pepper-pots, and gilded it inside on machine-moulded stucco!"
Above it was an embankment rounded like a bastion, up the left side of which I crept or, you might almost say, crawled and, reaching the top, found myself close under the front of a dwelling-house. It was coated with whitewash, the glimmer of which showed me the queer shape of the building even in the darkness. It consisted of two stories, both round as pepper-pots.
A week after the incidents just described he walked into my room with a small package under his arm. "There's the pair!" he observed, unwrapping the parcel and displaying its contents two superb, golden pepper-pots, both inscribed "A.R. to C.C." "Beauties, aren't they?" "They are, indeed. Did Bruce give it up willingly?" I asked. "He never said a word," laughed Holmes.
The attendants kept the sheets and the blankets under lock and key, for fear the old women should soil them 'Let the old devil's pepper-pots sleep on the floor. The old women did not dare to sit down on the beds, to put on their jackets, to walk over the polished floors.
I assure you it was not in the least degree in the hope of personal profit that I chose the latter course. Ten days later a pair of massive golden pepper-pots came to me, and, as the King had intimated would be the case, there was nothing about them to show whence they had come.
The tinsmith brings out his steps, and, mounting them, stealthily removes the saucepans and pepper-pots that dangle on a wire above his sign-board. Pulling to his door he shuts out the foggy light that showed in his solder-strewn workshop. The square is deserted again. A bundle of sloppy parsley slips from the hawker's cart and topples over the wheel in driblets.
That is, my rooms were broken open during my absence, over night on a little canoeing trip to Henley, and about everything valuable in my possession was removed, including the truly regal pepper-pots sent me by his Majesty the King of Spain, that I had carelessly left standing upon my sideboard.
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