Though speaking, when he did speak, with a ‘common’ accent, and dressing in a ‘common’ way, Mr Prest seemed to have no ambition to force his company upon the others, and kept himself very much to himself. This curious contradiction, combined with the fact that he was known to indulge in the totally alien and eerie practice of drinking beer locally, had earned him the reputation of being ‘funny’, ‘strange’, ‘odd’, ‘queer’. Though too quiet in his manners, and too seemly in his comings and goings, to give offence, he was yet regarded as being somehow beyond the pale. A silence fell as he entered the dining-room, and people found themselves staring at him, seeking to discover his secret.

A big man, nearing sixty years of age, Mr. Prest had a resonant and beery voice, and a face of that pugilistic cast which is acquired by certain music-hall comedians as well as pugilists: it is almost as though they bear the marks of eggs, vegetables, and dead cats thrown at them on Saturday nights in their strenuous past. In Mr. Prest’s face, in fact, was to be found his secret: As ‘Archie Prest’ he had long ago topped bills in provincial pantomimes and been featured with some distinction in London and provincial variety.

The Rosamund Tea Rooms knew nothing of this precisely, though it was rumoured amongst them that he had at one time been on, or connected with, ‘the stage’ – a rumour which only added to their fear and displeasure. Mr. Thwaites, for a long while unable even to pass the time of day with him on a staircase with civility, had finally sent him to Coventry absolutely, and the other guests, though without active malice, would have seemed to have taken their cue from Mr.Thwaites.