ODD CRAFT

By W.W. Jacobs



ODD CHARGES

Seated at his ease in the warm tap-room of the Cauliflower, the stranger
had been eating and drinking for some time, apparently unconscious of the
presence of the withered ancient who, huddled up in that corner of the
settle which was nearer to the fire, fidgeted restlessly with an empty
mug and blew with pathetic insistence through a churchwarden pipe which
had long been cold. The stranger finished his meal with a sigh of
content and then, rising from his chair, crossed over to the settle and,
placing his mug on the time-worn table before him, began to fill his
pipe.

[Illustration: "Seated at his ease in the warm tap-room of the
Cauliflower."]

The old man took a spill from the table and, holding it with trembling
fingers to the blaze, gave him a light. The other thanked him, and then,
leaning back in his corner of the settle, watched the smoke of his pipe
through half-closed eyes, and assented drowsily to the old man's remarks
upon the weather.

"Bad time o' the year for going about," said the latter, "though I s'pose
if you can eat and drink as much as you want it don't matter. I s'pose
you mightn't be a conjurer from London, sir?"