MR. STRENBERRY’S TALE
by J.B. PRIESTLEY
“AND THANK YOU, SAID THE LANDLADY, WITH THE MECHANICAL CHEERFULNESS of her kind. She pushed across the counter one shilling and four coppers, which all contrived to get wet on the journey. “Yes, it’s quiet enough. Sort of weather to bring them in too, though it’s a bit early yet for our lot. Who’s in the Private Bar?” She craned her fat little neck, peered across the other side, and then returned, looking very confidential. “Only one. But he’s one of our reg’lars. A bit toe reg’lar, if you ask me, Mr. Strenberry is.”
I put down my glass, and glanced out, through the open door. All I could see was a piece of wet road. The rain was falling now with that precision which suggests it will go on for ever. It was darker too. “And who is Mr. Strenberry?” I enquired, merely for want of something better to do. It did not matter to me who Mr. Strenberry was.
The landlady leaned forward a little. “He’s the schoolmaster from down the road,” she replied, in a delighted whisper. “Been here—oh, lemme see—it must be four years, might be five. Came from London here. Yes, that’s where he came from, London. Sydenham, near the Crystal Palace, that’s his home. I know because he’s told me so himself, and I’ve a sister that’s lived near there these twenty years.”
. . .
