Explore "The House in Lordship Lane" by A.E.W. Mason on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
MORDAUNT stripped himself of his suede jerkin, his high sea-boots, and the rest of his defences against a gale, and slipped into the bath. After the buffeting of sea and wind, the velvet caress of hot fresh water was a delight for a Roman emperor. He shaved in it, soaped his limbs, and emptied his sponge again and again over his head, wondering whether there could be anything as good as living hard and bathing soft. But it was Agamemnon's bath. It is true that no lady with a meat axe was secretly opening the bathroom door, no lads of the village listening timidly in the road were wailing "Ai, ai! That was a nasty one!" as the axe was heftily administered. But it was still, in its way, fateful. Mordaunt lay and relaxed his sinews and steeped his limbs and closed his eyes--and opened them und closed them again. From far away there was a splash of sculls, the grating of a rowing boat against a ship's side, and then a voice, thin and small, as though it spoke through a hundred folds of grey silk, but cheerful: "So here you are, back again, Aggy boy."
Mordaunt assured himself solemnly that Aggy Boy was not a name.