Explore "The Stoneware Monkey" by R. Austin Freeman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Our invitation to Oldfield came very opportunely, for he was just preparing for his holiday and had already got a locum-tenens installed. So when, on the appointed evening, he turned up in buoyant spirits, it was as a free man, immune from the haunting fear of an urgent call.
Polton's artful arrangements for unostentatious eavesdropping had come to naught, for Thorndyke and I had insisted on his laying a place for himself at the table and joining us as the colleague that he had actually become in late years, rather than the servant that he still proclaimed himself to be. For the gradual change of status from servant to friend had occurred quite smoothly and naturally. Polton was a man in whom perfect manners were inborn; and as for his intellect, well, I would gladly have swapped my brain for his.