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Freeman, R. Austin (Richard Austin), 1862-1943

"The Vanishing Man"


Permit me, then, to introduce Paul Berkeley, M.B., etc., recently--very
recently--qualified, faultlessly attired in the professional frock-coat
and tall hat, and, at the moment of introduction, navigating with
anxious care a perilous strait between a row of well-filled coal-sacks
and a colossal tray piled high with kidney potatoes.
The passage of this strait landed me on the terra firma of Fleur-de-Lys
Court, where I halted for a moment to consult my visiting list. There
was only one more patient for me to see this morning, and he lived at 49
Nevill's Court, wherever that might be. I turned for information to the
presiding deity of the coal shop.
"Can you direct me, Mrs. Jablett, to Nevill's Court?"
She could and she did, grasping me confidentially by the arm (the mark
remained on my sleeve for weeks) and pointing a shaking forefinger at
the dead wall ahead. "Nevill's Court," said Mrs. Jablett, "is a alley,
and you goes into it through a archway. It turns out of Fetter Lane on
the right 'and as you goes up, oppersight Bream's Buildings.


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