Peter Ruff and the Double Four: Large Print

By: Oppenheim, Edward Phillips

There was nothing about the supper party on that particular Sunday evening inNovember at Daisy Villa, Green Street, Streatham, which seemed to indicate in any way thatone of the most interesting careers connected with the world history of crime was to owets very existence to the disaster which befell that little gathering. The villa was theresidence and also-to his credit-the unmortgaged property of Mr. David Barnes, astruggling but fairly prosperous coal merchant of excellent character, some means, andMethodist proclivities. His habit of sitting without his coat when carving, althoughdeprecated by his wife and daughter on account of the genteel aspirations of the latter, wasa not unusual one in the neighbourhood; and coupled with the proximity of a cold joint ofbeef, his seat at the head of the table, and a carving knife and fork grasped in his hands, established clearly the fact of his position in the household, which a somewhat weakphysiognomy might otherwise have led the casual observer to doubt. Opposite him, at theother end of the table, sat his wife, Mrs. Barnes, a somewhat voluminous lady with a highcolour, a black satin frock, and many ornaments. On her left the son of the house, eighteenyears old, of moderate stature, somewhat pimply, with the fashion of the moment reflectedn his pink tie with white spots, drawn through a gold ring, and curving outwards to seekobscurity underneath a dazzling waistcoat. A white tube-rose in his buttonhole might havebeen intended as a sort of compliment to the occasion, or an indication of his intention totake a walk after supper in the fashionable purlieus of the neighbourhood. Facing him sathis sister-a fluffy-haired, blue-eyed young lady, pretty in her way, but chiefly noticeablefor a peculiar sort of self-consciousness blended with self-satisfaction, and possessed onlyat a certain period in their lives by young ladies of her age. It was almost the air of the cat inwhose interior reposes the missing canary, except that in this instance the canary obviouslyexisted in the person of the young man who sat at her side, introduced formally to thehousehold for the first time. That young man's name was-at the moment-Mr. SpencerFitzgeral

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B08P66SGR5
• ISBN13: 9798574209974
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.5" x 11.0"