*ll was in actual fact, not so much a man of the world, as a man of ba*ord and hartshill, but here was a life lived in an extraordinary richness of simplicity1, a wealth of minute experience and also, i always felt, a whole ocean of experience that only *ll knew of, with which he sat at night in his back room alone, and unpacked2 secretly like a cut glass set, and repacked again before morning.
i felt that there was * to *ll than he *r let on.
when we first moved into victoria street, our arrival was marked by two things.
one - within minutes , i was ordered to fetch my mother a packet of cigarettes.
norman bettany, the owner of the small grocer's next door one, sporting grey shop coat and brilliantined（梳理头发） hair, shook my hand and said,
"welcome to ba*ord"
it was the sort of gesture i can't imagine receiving now.
two - *ngo, the dog who had lived in our house with its previous occupants, started to pay us unannounced and traumatic（外伤的） visits. this gave *ll an opportunity to demonstrate his way with dogs.
*ngo had already left us a fair memorial to his former guardianship3 of the house in the form of scored scratch marks at paw l*l on the outside of the kitchen door - which opened on to the yard. it was from here a few days after unpacking4 most of our belongings5, that we heard scratching and desperate grunting6 and moaning. when the window was checked, there once again was *ngo, a refugee from his own destiny, seeking a way back to what he knew and was sure of.
the first time, we had little clue as to *ngo's demeanour（行为） when he discovered that his territory, and that of his * and mistress, was now under the occupancy of an invading force, who would deny him what he still saw as his legitimate7 home.
in short, *ngo turned exceptionally nasty. when he saw our heads pop up in the window frame, instead of the reassurin* features of his owners, he had an expression of bewilderment（困惑，迷乱） . his eyes, if *r a dog could do this - became wide with shock and incomprehension, which, as he was approached, festered（溃烂） into vicious disappointment, *le and acrid9（辛辣的） resentment10.
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