The others
watched him while he did so--or contemplated in silence some "guest" of
the hostelry, when such a personage entered the place with an air of
appealing from the general irresponsibility of the establishment and
found no one but the village-philosophers to address himself to. It was
an establishment conducted by invisible, elusive agencies; they had a
kind of stronghold in the dining-room, which was kept locked at all but
sacramental hours. There was a tradition that a "boy" exercised some
tutelary function as regards the crumpled register; but when he was
inquired about, it was usually elicited from the impartial circle in the
office either that he was somewhere round or that he had gone a-fishing.
Except the haughty waitress who has just been mentioned as giving Ransom
his supper, and who only emerged at meal-times from her mystic
seclusion, this impalpable youth was the single person on the premises
who represented domestic service. Anxious lady-boarders, wrapped in
shawls, were seen waiting for him, as if he had been the doctor, on
horse-hair rocking-chairs, in the little public parlour; others peered
vaguely out of back doors and windows, thinking that if he were
somewhere round they might see him. Sometimes people went to the door of
the dining-room and tried it, shaking it a little, timidly, to see if it
would yield; then, finding it fast, came away, looking, if they had been
observed, shy and snubbed, at their fellows.
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