MMS List "The Landlady" by Roald Dahl

They had porches and pillars and four or five steps going up to their front doors, and it was obvious that once upon a time they had been very swanky residences.

But now, even in the darkness, he could see that the paint was peeling from the woodwork on their doors and windows, and that the handsome white facades were cracked and blotchy from neglect.

He went right up and peered through the glass into the room, and the first thing he saw was a bright fire burning in the hearth.

On the other hand, a pub would be more congenial than a boardinghouse.

The name itself conjured up images of watery cabbage, rapacious landladies, and a powerful smell of kippers in the living-room.

The name itself conjured up images of watery cabbage, rapacious landladies, and a powerful smell of kippers in the living room.

After dithering about like this in the cold for two or three minutes, Billy decided that he would walk on and take a look at The Bell and Dragon before making up his mind.

He was in the act of stepping back and turning away from the window when all at once his eye was caught and held in the most peculiar manner by the small notice that was there.

BED AND BREAKFAST, BED AND BREAKFAST, BED AND BREAKFAST. Each word was like a large black eye staring at him through the glass, holding him, compelling him, forcing him to stay where he was and not to walk away from that house, and the next thing he knew, he was actually moving across from the window to the front door of the house, climbing the steps that led up to it, and reaching for the bell.

The compulsion or, more accurately, the desire to follow after her into that house was extraordinarily strong.

“I’m so glad you appeared,” she said, looking earnestly into his face. “I was beginning to get worried.”

She was holding it well out in front of her, and rather high up, as though the tray were a pair of reins on a frisky horse.

“Dear me,” she said, shaking her head and heaving a dainty little sigh.

There is nothing more tantalizing than a thing like this that lingers just outside the borders of one’s memory.

Now and again, he caught a whiff of a peculiar smell that seemed to emanate directly from her person.

There wasn’t a blemish on his body.