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TWO:There were plenty of people in Bracebridge who possessed it, but except at meetings and on official occasions he did not come in contact with them. As ex-fishmonger, as proprietor and managing director of the Stores, he moved in a society quite{70} distinct from those to whom John was learning so quickly to belong. But he could see them tellingly contrasted with each other if he cared to walk along Alfred Street, past the church where he was so regular an attendant on Sunday, to where there stood side by side the two social clubs of Bracebridge, namely the Bracebridge Club to which he himself and other business men belonged, and next door, the County Club from which those of his own social standing were excluded. The Bracebridge Club was far the more flourishing of the two: its bow-windows were always full of sleek and prosperous merchants, having their glass of sherry before lunch, or reading the papers when they arrived in the pleasant hour after offices and shops were shut in the evening. These premises were always crowded at the sociable hours of the business day, and at the last committee meeting the subject of an extension of accommodation had been discussed. There was no such congestion next door, where retired colonels, and occasional canons of the cathedral, and county magnates in Bracebridge for the day spoke softly to each other, or sought the isolation of a screening newspaper in a leather arm-chair. But the quality which Keeling found so hard to define and so easy to recognize, and which to him was perfectly distinct from any snobbish appreciation of position or title, brooded over those portals of the County{71} Club. In the families of those who frequented it the produce of his own secret garden grew wild, as it were: the culture, the education of which it was the fruit were indigenous to the soil. He did not suppose that Colonel Crawshaw, or Canon Arbuthnot, or Lord Inverbroom discussed Omar Khayyam or the Morte d��Arthur any more than did Alderman James, or Town-Councillor Phillips, but there was the soil from which culture sprang, just as from it sprang that indefinable air of breeding which already he observed in John. One day he had seen John standing in the window there with Colonel Crawshaw and his son, who was a schoolfellow of John��s, and Keeling��s heart had swelled with a strange mixture of admiration and envy to see how much John was at ease, sitting on the arm of a big chair, and with a nameless insouciance of respect refusing a cigarette which Colonel Crawshaw had offered him. Lord Inverbroom stood by John; and John was perfectly at ease in these surroundings. That was a tiny instance, but none could have been more typical. Keeling wanted, with the want of a thirsty man, not so much to belong to the County Club, as to feel himself at ease there if he did belong.They had no difficulty in reaching the hotel, as they were in the hands of the runner of the establishment, who took good care that they did not go astray and fall into the clutches of the representative of the rival concern. The publicans of the open ports of Japan have a watchful eye for their interests, and the stranger does not have to wander long in the streets to find accommodation. The Doctor had been there before, and took great pains to have his bargain made with the utmost exactness, lest there might be a mistake at the time of his departure. "In Europe and Asia," he remarked to Frank, "a traveller soon learns that he cannot be too explicit in making his contracts at hotels; if he neglects this little formality, he will often find that his negligence has cost him something. The last time I was in Yokohama I had a very warm discussion with my landlord when I settled my bill, and I don't propose to have a repetition of it." TWO:��Perfectly. Perhaps you would leave a line on the table to say how your brother is. I don��t suppose I shall see you to-night.��"Yes, I think I do; I think--" TWO:��I don��t think you need come down to-morrow morning, Miss Propert,�� he said. ��You can take the half-day off.{301}�� TWO:Charles looked at him rather curiously, and Keeling wondered whether some doubt as to his sobriety had crossed the young man��s mind. The idea amused him.He looked at her, and saw that her face seemed flushed. That, no doubt, was owing to the heat of the room where she had been working. He pushed a ledger and a pile of typewritten sheets towards her.