The regular customers had begun to come in. Esther greeted them with nods
and smiles of recognition. She drew the beer two glasses at once in her
hand, and picked up little zinc measures, two and four of whisky, and
filled them from a small tap. She usually knew the taste of her customers.
When she made a mistake she muttered "stupid," and Mr. Ketley was much
amused at her forgetting that he always drank out of the bottle; he was
one of the few who came to the "King's Head" who could afford sixpenny
whisky. "I ought to have known by this time," she said. "Well, mistakes
will occur in the best regulated families," the little butterman replied.
He was meagre and meek, with a sallow complexion and blond beard. His pale
eyes were anxious, and his thin, bony hands restless. His general manner
was oppressed, and he frequently raised his hat to wipe his forehead,
which was high and bald. At his elbow stood Journeyman, Ketley's very
opposite. A tall, harsh, angular man, long features, a dingy complexion,
and the air of a dismissed soldier. He held a glass of whisky-and-water in
a hairy hand, and bit at the corner of a brown moustache. He wore a
threadbare black frock-coat, and carried a newspaper under his arm. Ketley
and Journeyman held widely different views regarding the best means of
backing horses.
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