Chapter 12

The voice was suave, but it somehow compelled an answer. Franky, with an indistinct remembrance of _viva voce_ examinations awakening in him, cleared his throat and fell back a pace or two.... Well set up and well-bred, well-groomed and well-dressed, his figure, beside that other in the priestly soutane of rusty alpaca, short enough to reveal coarse ribbed stockings of black yarn, and cracked prunella shoes with worn steel buckles, made a contrast sufficiently quaint to provoke a stare of curiosity, had any observ…