At last the cab
drew up at the third house in a new terrace. None of the other
houses were inhabited, and that at which we stopped was as dark
as its neighbors, save for a single glimmer in the kitchen
window. On our knocking, however, the door was instantly thrown
open by a Hindoo servant clad in a yellow turban, white loose-
fitting clothes, and a yellow sash. There was something
strangely incongruous in this Oriental figure framed in the
commonplace door-way of a third-rate suburban dwelling-house.
"The Sahib awaits you," said he, and even as he spoke there came
a high piping voice from some inner room. "Show them in to me,
khitmutgar," it cried. "Show them straight in to me."
Chapter IV
The Story of the Bald-Headed Man
We followed the Indian down a sordid and common passage, ill lit
and worse furnished, until he came to a door upon the right,
which he threw open. A blaze of yellow light streamed out upon
us, and in the centre of the glare there stood a small man with a
very high head, a bristle of red hair all round the fringe of it,
and a bald, shining scalp which shot out from among it like a
mountain-peak from fir-trees. He writhed his hands together as
he stood, and his features were in a perpetual jerk, now smiling,
now scowling, but never for an instant in repose.
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