DIALSTONE LANE

By W.W. Jacobs

Part I.



CHAPTER I

Mr. Edward Tredgold sat in the private office of Tredgold and Son, land
and estate agents, gazing through the prim wire blinds at the peaceful
High Street of Binchester. Tredgold senior, who believed in work for the
young, had left early. Tredgold junior, glad at an opportunity of
sharing his father's views, had passed most of the work on to a clerk who
had arrived in the world exactly three weeks after himself.

"Binchester gets duller and duller," said Mr. Tredgold to himself,
wearily. "Two skittish octogenarians, one gloomy baby, one gloomier
nursemaid, and three dogs in the last five minutes. If it wasn't for the
dogs--Halloa!"

He put down his pen and, rising, looked over the top of the blind at a
girl who was glancing from side to side of the road as though in search
of an address.

"A visitor," continued Mr. Tredgold, critically. "Girls like that only
visit Binchester, and then take the first train back, never to return."

The girl turned at that moment and, encountering the forehead and eyes,