‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, ‘but could you oblige me with a match?’
‘Certainly.’
He sat down beside me and while I put my hand in my pocket for matches he
hunted in his for cigarettes. He took out a small packet of Gold Flake and his
face fell.
‘Dear, dear, how very annoying! I haven’t got a cigarette left.’
‘Let me offer you one,’ I replied, smiling.
I took out my case and he helped himself.
‘Gold?’ he asked, giving the case a tap as I closed it. ‘Gold? That’s a thing I
never could keep. I’ve had three. All stolen.’
His eyes rested in a melancholy way on his boots, which were sadly in need of
repair. He was a wizened little man with a long thin nose and pale–blue eyes.
His skin was sallow and he was much lined. I could not tell what his age was;
he might have been five–and–thirty or he might have been sixty. There was
nothing remarkable about him except his insignificance. But though evidently
poor he was neat and clean. He was respectable and he clung to respectability.
No, I did not think he was a mute, I thought he was a solicitor’s clerk who had
lately buried his wife and been sent to Elsom by an indulgent employer to get
over the first shock of his grief.
‘Are you making a long stay, sir?’ he asked me.
‘Ten days or a fortnight.’
‘Is this your first visit to Elsom, sir?’
‘I have been here before.’
‘I know it well, sir. I flatter myself there are very few seaside resorts that I have
not been to at one time or another. Elsom is hard to beat, sir. You get a very nice
class of people here. There’s nothing noisy or vulgar about Elsom, if you
understand what I mean. Elsom has very pleasant recollections for me, sir.
I knew Elsom well in bygone days. I was married in St Martin’s Church, sir.’
‘Really,’ I said feebly.
‘It was a very happy marriage, sir.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ I returned.
‘Nine months, that one lasted,’ he said reflectively.
Surely the remark was a trifle singular. I had not looked forward with any
enthusiasm to the probability which I so clearly foresaw that he would favour
me with an account of his matrimonial experiences, but now I waited if not
with eagerness at least with curiosity for a further observation. He made none.
He sighed a little. At last I broke the silence.
‘There don’t seem to be very many people about,’ I remarked.
‘I like it so. I’m not one for crowds. As I was saying just now, I reckon I’ve
spent a good many years at one seaside resort after the other, but I never came
in the season. It’s the winter I like.’
‘Don’t you find it a little melancholy?’
He turned towards me and placed his black–gloved hand for an instant on
my arm.
‘It is melancholy. And because it’s melancholy a little ray of sunshine is very
welcome.’
The remark seemed to me perfectly idiotic and I did not answer. He withdrew
his hand from my arm and got up.