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THE SHADOW ON THE CURTAIN

perceptibly. Perhaps the stoop came from carrying his black bag about day after day, for the Doctor had never attained to the dignity of a carriage. When he had to have one he hired it from Stewart, the liveryman. He had a kindly face, but he usually looked tired and had a disconcerting habit of dropping off to sleep in the middle of a conversation or, not infrequently, half-way through a meal. Perry was not unlike his father as to features. He had the same rather short and very straight nose and the same nice mouth, but he had obtained his brown eyes from his mother. Dr. Hull's eyes were pale blue-gray and he had a fashion of keeping them only a little more than half open, which added to his appearance of weariness. He always dressed in a suit of dark clothes which looked black without actually being black. For years he had had his suits made for him by the same unstylish little tailor who dwelt, like a spider in a hole, under the Union Restaurant on Common Street. Whether the suits, one of which was made every spring, all came off the same bolt of cloth, I can't say, but it's a fact that Mrs. Hull had to study long to make out which was this year's suit and which last's. On Sunday evenings, however, the Doctor donned a faded and dearly-loved house-jacket of black velveteen with

frayed silk frogs, for on Sunday evenings he kept

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