CHAPTER 13The dining-room of the George Hotel at Wraydon is very strictly in the tradition of its many Georgian and Victorian counterparts. It has a row of tall windows curtained in olive green and rather heavily screened by yellowing net. The tables—it does have separate tables—are solidly constructed, and shrouded to within an inch or two of the floor. The table-cloths have seen better days. Sometimes there is a vase containing a couple of paper flowers and a sprig of evergreen. In summer the flowers may even be real if rather shabby-genteel, but always, and where you cannot possibly help seeing it, there is a massive ash-tray which advertises some well known brand of table-water. From the walls engravings representing the royalties and politicians of a bygone day gaze benignly or severe
