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"The
Tiger was very conveniently close to the Wedgwood Institution. The
Tiger had a 'yard', one of those long, shapeless expanses of the
planet, partly paved with uneven cobbles and partly unsophisticated
planet, without which no provincial hotel can call itself respectable.
We came into it from the hinterland through a wooden doorway in a
brick wall. Far off I could see one light burning.
We were in the centre of Bursley, the gold angel of its Town Hall rose
handsomely over the roof of the hotel in the diffused moonlight, but
we might have been in the purlieus of some dubious establishment on
the confines of a great seaport, where anything may happen."
Bennett: The death of Simon
Fuge - The grim smile of the Five Towns
"Then where shall you
go?" "We shall put up at the Tiger," said George, impressively.
"The Tiger?" gasped Mary. George had meant to stagger, and he had
staggered.
"The Tiger," he
iterated. "With Georgie?" "With Georgie."
"But what will uncle
say? I shouldn't be surprised if uncle has never been in the Tiger in
his life. You know his views--" "I don't care twopence for your
uncle," said George, again implicitly blaming Mary for the
peculiarities of her uncle's character. "Something's got to be done,
and I'm going to do it.
........ And as,
nearly opposite that celebrated hotel, the Tiger, he was about to
cross over to the eastern porch of the Town Hall, he saw a
golden-haired man approaching him with a perambulator. And the sight
made him pause involuntarily. It was a strange sight. Then he
recognized his nephew-in-law. And he blanched, partly from excessive
astonishment, but partly from fear.
"How do, uncle?" said
George, nonchalantly, as though he had parted from him on the previous
evening. "Just hang on to this pram a sec., will you?" And, pushing
the perambulator towards Samuel Peel, J.P., George swiftly fled, and,
for the perfection of his uncle-in-law's amazement, disappeared into
the Tiger."
Bennett: The Tiger and the baby
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