After all, the fabled Sirens have their equivalent in the male sex,
and Homer's description symbolizes a cruel truth.
CHAPTER X
FRIENDS IN COUNCIL
The Wattle Tree Hotel, to which Mr McIntosh had directed Pierre, was
a quiet little public-house in a quiet street. It was far away from
the main thoroughfares of the city, and a stranger had to go up any
number of quiet streets to get to it, and turn and twist round
corners and down narrow lanes until it became a perfect miracle how
he ever found the hotel at all.
To a casual spectator it would seem that a tavern so difficult of
access would not be very good for business, but Simon Twexby, the
landlord, knew better. It had its regular customers, who came there
day after day, and sat in the little back parlour and talked and
chatted over their drinks. The Wattle Tree was such a quiet haven of
rest, and kept such good liquor, that once a man discovered it he
always came back again; so Mr Twexby did a very comfortable trade.
Rumour said he had made a lot of money out of gold-mining, and that
he kept the hotel more for amusement than anything else; but,
however this might be, the trade of the Wattle Tree brought him in a
very decent income, and Mr Twexby could afford to take things easy--
which he certainly did.
Anyone going into the bar could see old Simon--a stolid, fat man,
with a sleepy-looking face, always in his shirt sleeves, and wearing
a white apron, sitting in a chair at the end, while his daughter, a
sharp, red-nosed damsel, who was thirty-five years of age, and
confessed to twenty-two, served out the drinks.
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