Read "Captain Shannon" by Coulson Kernahan online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It had been raining heavily when the train drew up at the Cotley platform, but as I did not know how far I might have to walk I had put up my umbrella when leaving the station only to put it down again as I entered the hairdresser's shop. I was holding the half-closed umbrella in my hand when my eye caught sight of the two letters. To sweep them as if by accident into the folds of the umbrella was the work of a second, and then as I turned quickly round I saw a man without a hat and wearing a white apron slip out of the door of a publichouse opposite and run hastily across the road towards the shop, wiping his mouth with his hand as he did so.
As I expected, he was the proprietor of the establishment, and after wishing me good-morning and apologising for being out of the way by explaining that he had been across the road to borrow a postage stamp, he proceeded to tuck me up in a white sheet preparatory to cutting my hair.