Edgar Wallace

“ She came to the station platform just as the train steamed in. Only one passenger alighted and instinctively she knew that this was her visitor.
He was a man a little above medium height, straight shoulders, and erect. There was nothing of the artist in his appearance, though the face was intellectual and the humorous blue eyes, no less than the well-shaped, sensitive lips, told of imagination. ”

“ She felt it difficult to maintain a conventional gravity under the influence of his boyish nonsense.
“I am, indeed,” he went on seriously. “I am Fortune’s favoured child: criticism and reprobation trickle off my back as water from a duck’s. A sense of my rectitude, combined with a spirit of toleration for the unrighteousness of others, gives me that lofty feeling which is the peculiar possession of the philosopher.” ”

“ For Gladys had no illusions about her father. Worthy man as he was, admirable pillar of society, she never deceived herself as to his limitations.
Three days after the coming of the telegram which announced the arrival of the infamous Pallard, she was walking up and down the lawn before Hill View—so Mr Callander’s country called—awaiting her father.
Horace was amusing himself with a croquet mallet. He was passionately fond of croquet, and was one of the best players in the county: this game and painting were his two known vices. ”