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Gissing, George, 1857-1903

"The Town Traveller"


"And of course you will lunch with me, or will it be dinner? Yes,
yes, luncheon of course. Excuse me for one moment, I must give some
orders."
He left the room. Gammon, having tossed off a glass of wine,
surveyed the objects about him with curiosity. An observer of more
education would have glanced with peculiar interest at the books;
several volumes lay on the table, one of them a recent work on
gipsies, another dealing with the antiquities of Cornwall. For the
town traveller these things of course had no significance. But he
remarked a painting on the wall, which was probably a portrait of
one of Lord Polperro's ancestors--a youngish man (the Trefoyle nose,
not to be mistaken) in a strange wild costume, his head bare under a
sky blackening to storm, in his hand a sort of hunting knife, and
one of his feet resting on a dead wolf. When his host reappeared
Gammon asked him whom the picture represented.
"That? That's my father--years before I was born. They tell me that
he used to say that in his life he had only done one thing to be
proud of.


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