Island. JOHN GALSWORTHY.

January 1, 1908




PART I

THE TOWN




CHAPTER I

SOCIETY

A quiet, well-dressed man named Shelton, with a brown face and a short,
fair beard, stood by the bookstall at Dover Station. He was about
to journey up to London, and had placed his bag in the corner of a
third-class carriage.

After his long travel, the flat-vowelled voice of the bookstall clerk
offering the latest novel sounded pleasant--pleasant the independent
answers of a bearded guard, and the stodgy farewell sayings of a man and
wife. The limber porters trundling their barrows, the greyness of the
station and the good stolid humour clinging to the people, air, and
voices, all brought to him the sense of home. Meanwhile he wavered
between purchasing a book called Market Hayborough, which he had