It was generally a disagreeable ordeal for
newcomers but Edward Ashburnham bore it like an Englishman
and a gentleman. I could see his lips form a word of three
syllables--remember I had nothing in the world to do but to notice
these niceties--and immediately I knew that he must be Edward
Ashburnham, Captain, Fourteenth Hussars, of Branshaw House,
Branshaw Teleragh. I knew it because every evening just before
dinner, whilst I waited in the hall, I used, by the courtesy of
Monsieur Schontz, the proprietor, to inspect the little police
reports that each guest was expected to sign upon taking a room.
The head waiter piloted him immediately to a vacant table, three
away from my own--the table that the Grenfalls of Falls River,
N.J., had just vacated. It struck me that that was not a very nice
table for the newcomers, since the sunlight, low though it was,
shone straight down upon it, and the same idea seemed to come at
the same moment into Captain Ashburnham's head. His face
hitherto had, in the wonderful English fashion, expressed nothing
whatever. Nothing. There was in it neither joy nor despair; neither
hope nor fear; neither boredom nor satisfaction.
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