‘Not yet you don’t,’ said Mr Brindley.  ’I’ve got to get the taste of that infernal Strauss out of my mouth.  We’ll play the first movement of the G minor?  La-la-la—­la-la-la—­la-la-la-ta.’  He whistled a phrase.

Mr Colclough obediently sat down again to the piano.

The Mozart was like an idyll after a farcical melodrama.  They played it with an astounding delicacy.  Through the latter half of the movement I could hear Mr Brindley breathing regularly and heavily through his nose, exactly as though he were being hypnotized.  I had a tickling sensation in the small of my back, a sure sign of emotion in me.  The atmosphere was changed.

‘What a heavenly thing!’ I exclaimed enthusiastically, when they had finished.

Mr Brindley looked at me sharply, and just nodded in silence.  Well, good night, Ol.’

‘I say,’ said Mr Colclough; ’if you’ve nothing doing later on, bring Mr Loring round to my place.  Will you come, Mr Loring?  Do!  Us’ll have a drink.’

These Five Towns people certainly had a simple, sincere way of offering hospitality that was quite irresistible.  One could see that hospitality was among their chief and keenest pleasures.

We all went to the front door to see Mr Colclough depart homewards in his automobile.  The two great acetylene head-lights sent long glaring shafts of light down the side street.  Mr Colclough, throwing the score of the Sinfonia Domestica into the tonneau of the immense car, put on a pair of gloves and began to circulate round the machine, tapping here, screwing there, as chauffeurs will.  Then he bent down in front to start the engine.

‘By the way, Ol,’ Mr Brindley shouted from the doorway, ’it seems Simon Fuge is dead.’

We could see the man’s stooping form between the two head-lights.  He turned his head towards the house.

‘Who the dagger is Simon Fuge?’ he inquired.  ’There’s about five thousand Fuges in th’ Five Towns.’

‘Oh!  I thought you knew him.’

‘I might, and I mightn’t.  It’s not one o’ them Fuge brothers saggar-makers at Longshaw, is it?’

‘No, It’s—­’

Mr Colclough had succeeded in starting his engine, and the air was rent with gun-shots.  He jumped lightly into the driver’s seat.

‘Well, see you later,’ he cried, and was off, persuading the enormous beast under him to describe a semicircle in the narrow street backing, forcing forward, and backing again, to the accompaniment of the continuous fusillade.  At length he got away, drew up within two feet of an electric tram that slid bumping down the main street, and vanished round the corner.  A little ragged boy passed, crying, ‘Signal, extra,’ and Mr Brindley hailed him.

‘What is Mr Colclough?’ I asked in the drawing-room.

‘Manufacturer—­sanitary ware,’ said Mr Brindley.  ’He’s got one of the best businesses in Hanbridge.  I wish I’d half his income.  Never buys a book, you know.’