Tony Walker

I pointed out the bit about the rent, but my wife said, yes, you'll have to go down and see the landlord and get him to come down.

They always do.

As a matter of fact, they always don't.

That's a detail.

Anyway, I wrote off to the landlord and asked if he could arrange for me to stay the night in the place to see what it was really like.

He wrote back and said, certainly, and that he was engaging Mrs. So-and-so to come in and oblige me, make up the beds and so forth.

I tell you, we do things thoroughly in our family.

I have to sleep in all the beds, and when I come home my wife counts the bruises and decides whether they will do or not.

At any rate, I arrived in a blinding snowstorm, at about the most desolate spot on God's earth.

I'd come to Potterham by train and been driven on.

It was a good five miles from the station.

Fortunately, Mrs. Selston, the old lady who was going to do for me, was there, and she'd lighted a fire and cooked me a steak, for which I was truly thankful.

I somehow think the cow, or whatever they get steaks off, had only died that morning.

It was very, um, obstinate.

While I dined, she talked to me.

She would tell me all about an operation her husband had just had.

All about it.

It was almost a lecture on surgery.

The steak was rather undone, and it sort of made me feel I was illustrating her lecture.

Anyway, she put me clean off my dinner and then departed for the night.