’Get the telegraph forms and tell Mr Cardew Thompkins we’re suited,’ cried Ross, getting up in a great hurry. ’Of course it’s _the_ house; you’re a jewel, Gidger. We never in our wildest moments hoped for a powdering closet.’
’I don’t know what the drainage is like,’ said Nannie.
’Fancy talking of drainage and a powder closet in the same century,’ said Ross indignantly, ’let’s have lunch at once, Meg, and catch the Longcross bus and go and see it.’
We had a bit of a scrimmage to catch the bus. It starts from the other inn, called The Ramping Cat. The guide-book says ’it is a small but well-conducted hostelry on the main road to London.’ It seems an unfortunate name to have chosen for a place with so high a moral tone. However, as we got half-way to it we saw the bus, looking, as Ross expressed it, ’about to weigh anchor, and we’re late as usual.’ So I ran on ahead to ask the man to wait for Ross, as I didn’t want his arm to be joggled.
The bus was a quaint affair, a kind of square sarcophagus on wheels, the door opened in two bits like a stable, and the driver informed us that ’the upper part ’ad jammed that tight he couldn’t get it open no’ow.’ So we crawled into the beastly thing’s bowels (I quote my brother), but after we had started the upper part flew open, and nothing I could do (or Ross say) would induce it to remain shut, so at last we gave it up as a bad job and left it idly flapping in the breeze.
Presently the bus stopped and the man poked his head in at the window and said,—
’I’m sorry to ’ave to ask you, mum and sir, to get down, but the ’orse is going to throw a fit.’
We hastily descended and found the poor beast trembling violently and looking wretched.
’Does he often have them?’ inquired Ross.
’No,’ said the man, ’only if ’e’s upset about anythink—when the young lady come up in the yard and asked me to wait, I thought ’e was going to throw one, but I ’oped we’d get to Longcross before ’e did.’
’Goodness!’ said Ross, hurrying me away, ’what a perfectly ghastly effect your face seems to have on animals, Meg; I should think we’d better walk back unless you could buy a thick veil in the village. If you come out here to live you’ll have to buy a motor; that poor beast’s health would soon be undermined if you used the bus constantly!’