Straight up the stranger went. The wide street was crammed with stalls, farmers' carts, carriers' carts, dog-carts, even a couple of automobiles, for Wednesday, being market day, was also police-court day and Board of Guardians day. He passed unheeded. On Wednesdays, Nuttonby was a metropolis; on any other day in the week he would have drawn dozens of curious eyes, peeping surreptitiously over short curtains, or more candidly in the open. Of course, he was seen by many, since Nuttonby was not so metropolitan that it failed to detect a new face, even on Wednesdays; but his style and appearance were of the gentry; Nuttonby decided that he had strayed in from some "big" house in the district. Walker & Son, it would seem, were auctioneers, land valuers, and probate estimators as well as house agents. Their office was small, but not retiring. It displayed a well-developed rash of sale posters, inside and out. One, in particular, was heroic in size. It told of a "spacious mansion, with well-timbered park," having been put up for auction--five years earlier. Whiteness of paper and blackness of type suggested that Walker & Son periodically renewed this aristocrat among auction announcements--perhaps to kindle a selling spirit among the landed gentry, a notoriously conservative and hold-tight class. A young man, seated behind a counter, reading a sporting newspaper, and smoking a cigarette, rose hastily when the caller entered. "Yes, sir," he said, thereby implying instant readiness to engage in one or all of the firm's activities. "Are you Mr. Walker?" said the newcomer. "Yes, sir." "Ah! I thought you might be the son." "Well, I am, if it comes to that. Do you want my father?" Walker, junior, was a Nuttonby "nut"--a sharp young blade who did not tolerate chaff. "I want to rent a furnished house in or near a quiet country village, where there is some good fishing," was the answer. "Now, you can determine whether I should trouble Mr. Walker, senior, or not?" "No trouble at all, sir! He'll be here in ten seconds." Walker, junior, had nearly made the same mistake as the ticket-collecting youth; however, he estimated time correctly. He went out, put his head through the open window of the "Red Lion's" bar-parlor, and shouted: "Dad, you're wanted!" Thus, within ten seconds, the stranger saw the firm! He repeated his need, and there was a great parade of big-leafed books, while the elder Walker ascertained the prospective client's exact requirements. Whittled down to bare facts, they amounted to this: A house, in a small and remote village, and a trout stream. The absolute seclusion of the village and its diminutive proportions were insisted on, and property after property was rejected, though the Walkers were puzzled to know why.