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

"The Vanishing Man"

"
I thanked Mrs. Jablett and went on my way, glad that the morning round
was nearly finished, and vaguely conscious of a growing appetite and of
a desire to wash in hot water.
The practice which I was conducting was not my own. It belonged to poor
Dick Barnard, an old St. Margaret's man of irrepressible spirits and
indifferent physique, who had started only the day before for a trip
down the Mediterranean on board a tramp engaged in the currant trade;
and this, my second morning's round, was in some sort a voyage of
geographical discovery.
I walked on briskly up Fetter Lane until a narrow, arched opening,
bearing the superscription "Nevill's Court," arrested my steps, and here
I turned to encounter one of those surprises that lie in wait for the
wanderer in London byways. Expecting to find the grey squalor of the
ordinary London court, I looked out from under the shadow of the arch
past a row of decent little shops through a vista full of light and
colour--a vista of ancient, warm-toned roofs and walls relieved by
sunlit foliage.


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