But When One Of The Flowers On My Hat Leaned Over The Brim And Exuded
Bloody Drops On The Front
Of my coat I began to weaken, and to think
that if there was nothing better to do I might
Get under one of the
seats; but just then the rain stopped and the sun shone. It was so
sudden that it startled me; but not one of those English people
mentioned that the rain had stopped and the sun was shining, and so
neither did Jone or I. We was feeling mighty moist and unhappy, but we
tried to smile as if we was plants in a greenhouse, accustomed to being
watered and feeling all the better for it.
I can't write you all about the coach drive, which was very delightful,
nor of that beautiful lake they call Virginia Water, and which I know
you have a picture of in your house. They tell me it is artificial, but
as it was made more than a hundred years ago, it might now be
considered natural. We dined at an inn, and when we got back to town,
with two more showers on the way, I said to Jone that I thought we'd
better go straight to the Babylon Hotel, which we intended to start out
for, although it was a long way round to go by Virginia Water, and see
about engaging a room; and as Jone agreed I asked the coachman if he
would put us down there, knowing that he'd pass near it. He agreed to
this, would be an advertisement for his coach.
When we got on the street where the Babylon Hotel was he whipped up his
horses so that they went almost on a run, and the horner blew his horn
until his eyes seemed bursting, and with a grand sweep and a clank and
a jingle we pulled up at the front of the big hotel. Out marched the
head porter in a blue uniform, and out ran two under-porters with red
coats, and down jumped the horner and put up his ladder, and Jone and I
got down, after giving the coachman half-a-crown, and receiving from
the passengers a combined gaze of differentialism which had been wholly
wanting before. The men in the red coats looked disappointed when they
saw we had no baggage, but the great doors was flung open and we went
straight up to the clerk's desk.
When we was taken to look at rooms I remembered that there was always
danger of Jone's tendency to thankful contentment getting the better of
him, and I took the matter in hand myself. Two rooms good enough for
anybody was shown us, but I was not going to take the first thing that
was offered, no matter what it was. We settled the matter by getting a
first-class room, with sofas and writing-desks and everything
convenient, for only a little more than we was charged for the other
rooms, and the next morning we went there.
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