Therefore she was the more thankful for her respite.
Harold Quaritch was happy too, though in a somewhat restless and
peculiar way. Mrs. Jobson (the old lady who attended to his wants at
Molehill, with the help of a gardener and a simple village maid, her
niece, who smashed all the crockery and nearly drove the Colonel mad
by banging the doors, shifting his papers and even dusting his trays
of Roman coins) actually confided to some friends in the village that
she thought the poor dear gentleman was going mad. When questioned on
what she based this belief, she replied that he would walk up and down
the oak-panelled dining-room by the hour together, and then, when he
got tired of that exercise, whereby, said Mrs. Jobson, he had already
worn a groove in the new Turkey carpet, he would take out a "rokey"
(foggy) looking bit of a picture, set it upon a chair and stare at it
through his fingers, shaking his head and muttering all the while.
Then--further and conclusive proof of a yielding intellect--he would
get a half-sheet of paper with some writing on it and put it on the
mantelpiece and stare at that. Next he would turn it upside down and
stare at it so, then sideways, then all ways, then he would hold it
before a looking-glass and stare at the looking-glass, and so on.
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