chairs as though from horses.

"Look here," I said. "You mustn't mind me. I shall be all right."

"Ha-ha!" shouted Brindley. "I seem to see you turned loose alone in this
amusing town on a winter afternoon. I seem to see you!"

"I could stop in and read," I said, eyeing the multitudinous books on
every wall of the dining-room. The house was dadoed throughout with
books.

"Rot!" said Brindley.

This was only my third visit to his home and to the Five Towns, but he
and I had already become curiously intimate. My first two visits had
been occasioned by official pilgrimages as a British Museum expert in
ceramics. The third was for a purely friendly week-end, and had no
pretext. The fact is, I was drawn to the astonishing district and its
astonishing inhabitants. The Five Towns, to me, was like the East to
those who have smelt the East: it "called."

"I'll tell you what we _could_ do," said Mrs Brindley. "We could put him
on to Dr Stirling."

"So we could!" Brindley agreed. "Wife, this is one of your bright,
intelligent days. We'll put you on to the doctor, Loring. I'll impress
on him that he must keep you constantly amused till I get back, which I
fear it won't be early. This is what we call manners, you know--to
invite a fellow-creature to travel a hundred and fifty miles to spend
two days here, and then to turn him out before he's been in the house an