What's happened to this place?"
She looked at him in the strangest way. He suddenly felt that he'd
never seen her before.
"There are a number of things, Martin, that you don't understand--a
number of things. You are away from us for years, you come back to
us and expect things to be the same."
"You and Amy," he said, "both of you, have kept me out of everything
since I came back. I believe you both hate me!"
She got up slowly from her seat, slowly put her spectacles away in
their case, rubbed her fat little hands together, then suddenly
licked inquisitively one finger as an animal might do. She spoke to
him over her shoulder as she went to the door:
"Oh no, Martin, you speak too strongly."
Left then to his own devices he, at last, wandered out into the
foggy streets. After a while he found himself outside a public-house
and, after a moment's hesitation, he went in. He asked the stout,
rubicund young woman behind the counter for a whisky. She gave him
one; he drank that, and then another.
Afterwards he had several more, leaning over the bar, speaking to no
one, seeing no one, hearing nothing, and scarcely tasting the drink.
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