Explore "To have and to Hold" by W.W. Jacobs on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The old man sat outside the Cauliflower Inn, looking crossly up the road. He was fond of conversation, but the pedestrian who had stopped to drink a mug of ale beneath the shade of the doors was not happy in his choice of subjects. He would only talk of the pernicious effects of beer on the constitutions of the aged, and he listened with ill-concealed impatience to various points which the baffled ancient opposite urged in its favour.
Conversation languished; the traveller rapped on the table and had his mug refilled. He nodded courteously to his companion and drank.