Then they all walked up the High Street as if, as Gerald said, they
were anybody else.
It was a strange procession, but Liddlesby goes early to bed, and
the Liddlesby police, in common with those of most other places,
wear boots that one can hear a mile off. If such boots had been
heard, Gerald would have had time to turn back and head them off.
He felt now that he could not resist a flush of pride in Mabel's
courage as he heard her polite rejoinders to the still more polite
remarks of the amiable Ugly-Wuglies. He did not know how near
she was to the scream that would throw away the whole thing and
bring the police and the residents out to the ruin of everybody.
They met no one, except one man, who murmured, "Guy Fawkes,
swelp me!" and crossed the road hurriedly; and when, next day, he
told what he had seen, his wife disbelieved him, and also said it
was a judgement on him, which was unreasonable.
Mabel felt as though she were taking part in a very completely
arranged nightmare, but Gerald was in it too Gerald, who had
asked if she was an idiot. Well, she wasn't. But she soon would be,
she felt. Yet she went on answering the courteous vowel-talk of
these impossible people. She had often heard her aunt speak of
impossible people. Well, now she knew what they were like.
Summer twilight had melted into summer moonlight. The shadows
of the Ugly-Wuglies on the white road were much more horrible
than their more solid selves.
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