TWO:One night early in December Norah Propert was busily engaged in the sitting-room of her brothers house just off the market-place at Bracebridge. She had left him over a book and a cigarette in the dining-room, and as soon as she had finished her supper had gone across the passage to her work again. The room was very simply decorated: to Mrs Keelings plush-and-mirror eye it would have seemed to be hardly decorated at all. There were a few framed photographs or cheap reproductions of famous pictures on the walls, a book-case held some three hundred volumes, the floor had a fawn-coloured drugget on it, and there was not a square inch of plush anywhere.
TWO:Would you then be kind enough to propose me for election to the County Club next April? said Keeling."I could go on with a long account of the tortures in China, but they are not very pleasant reading, and, besides, some of them are too horrible for belief. I will stop with the torture known as 'the hot-water snake,' which consists of a coil of thin tubing of tin or pewter in the form of a serpent. One of these coils is twisted around each arm of the victim, and another around his body, in such a way that the head of the snake is higher than any other part. Then they pour boiling water into the mouth of the snake, and the flesh of the prisoner is burned and scalded in the most terrible manner. This punishment is said to be used rarely, and only[Pg 374] on persons accused of crimes against the government. It is too horrible to be popular, even among the most cold-blooded people in the world.
TWO:Arthur remained in stupefied silence. He did not know what to make of these antics. The Clockwork man looked at him, and seemed to be trying hard to remould his features into a new expression, faintly benevolent. Apparently, however, it was a tremendous effort for him to move any part of[Pg 18] his face; and any change that took place merely made him look rather like a caricature of himself."Good-morning," he responded, tardily and grimly. "Well, you air in a hurry."
TWO:Oh, my dear Thomas, you havent heard the terrible news then? she said. I thought you would be sure to have seen it placarded somewhere. Alice went straight to her room, and I havent seen her since, though I repeatedly knocked at the door, which she has locked on the inside, and Im sure its most unnatural of her not to let her own mother comfort her. It all happened in a moment: I have always said those great motor-cars shouldnt be allowed to career about the streets, especially when they are all paved with cobbles as they are at Easton Haven, which are{331} so slippery when its wet. He slipped, and it went over him in a moment. "My Dear Friends: