Edwin was gradually becoming a regular customer at this place; for Martin’s delicate fancy for plovers on toast and other such refinements had proved too expensive for him, and apart from their joint labours in the dissecting-room, they were beginning to see less of each other—not from any ill-will on the part of either, but simply because Martin’s position in the house of the old lady in Alvaston, whose house was full of animals, had introduced him to the social life of that elegant suburb in which so perfect a carpet knight was bound to shine; and Martin’s social engagements with encouraging matrons and innumerable eligible daughters were becoming so pressing that his acquaintance with the black heart of the city was gradually becoming more and more casual. For this reason, apart from his natural inclination, Edwin was thrown into daily contact with Brown and his partner Maskew. Maskew was a more typical product of the Midlands. His home, and all his upbringing, had lain in one of the great black towns that cluster, like swollen knots, upon the North Bromwich system of railways. He had never lived in the country; he did not even know what country was, and his distinctive if provincial urbanity showed itself in a hundred ways—in his dress, that was a little too smart, in his speech, that was not quite smart enough, in a certain lack of fresh air in his mental atmosphere. His people were wealthy, and his tastes, without emulating the style of Harrop, were expensive. He was handsome, and if his hair had been shorter and not so mathematically correct he would have been handsomer. Still, he was intensely interested in women, and a great retailer of Rabelaisian stories. He wore buttoned boots and was very nearly a first-class billiard player.