Pomonas Travels | Page 5

pie dish and
charged as if we was the upper crust. I'm in favor of paying a little
more money and getting a lot more respectfulness, and the way to
begin is to give up these lodgings and go to a hotel such as the upper
middlers stop at. From what I've heard, the Babylon Hotel is the one for
us while we are in London. Nobody will suspect that any of the people
at that hotel are retired servants."
[Illustration: "Boy, go order me a four-in-hand"]
This hit Jone hard, as I knew it would, and he jumped up, made three
steps across the room, and rang the bell so that the people across the
street must have heard it, and up came the boy in green jacket and
buttons, with about every other button missing, and I never knew him
to come up so quick before.
"Boy," said Jone to him, as if he was hollering to a stubborn ox, "go
order me a four-in-hand."
But this letter is so long I must stop for the present.

Letter Number Two
LONDON
When Jone gave the remarkable order mentioned in my last letter I did
not correct him, for I wouldn't do that before servants without giving
him a chance to do it himself; but before either of us could say another
word the boy was gone.
"Mercy on us," I said, "what a stupid blunder! You meant
four-wheeler."

[Illustration: The Landlady with an "underdone visage"]
"Of course I did," he said; "I was a little mad and got things mixed, but
I expect the fellow understood what I meant."
"You ought to have called a hansom any way," I said, "for they are a lot
more stylish to go to a hotel in than in a four-wheeler."
"If there was six-wheelers I would have ordered one," said he. "I don't
want anybody to have more wheels than we have."
At this moment the landlady came into the room with a sarcastic
glimmer on her underdone visage, and, says she, "I suppose you don't
understand about the vehicles we have in London. The four-in-hand is
what the quality and coach people use when--" As I looked at Jone I
saw his legs tremble, and I know what that means. If I was a wanderin'
dog and saw Jone's legs tremble, the only thoughts that would fill my
soul would be such as cluster around "Home, Sweet Home." Jone was
too much riled by the woman's manner to be willing to let her think he
had made a mistake, and he stopped her short. "Look here," he said to
her, "I don't ask you to come here to tell me anything about vehicles.
When I order any sort of a trap I want it." When I heard Jone say trap
my soul lifted itself and I knew there was hope for us. The stiffness
melted right out of the landlady, and she began to look soft and
gummy.
"If you want to take a drive in a four-in-hand coach, sir," she said,
"there's two or three of them starts every morning from Trafalgar
Square, and it's not too late now, sir, if you go over there immediate."
"Go?" said Jone, throwing himself into a chair, "I said, order one to
come. Where I live that sort of vehicle comes to the door for its
passengers."
The woman looked at Jone with a venerative uplifting of her eyebrows.
"I can't say, sir, that a coach will come, but I'll send the boy. They go to
Dorking, and Seven Oaks, and Virginia Water--"

"I want to go to Virginia Water," said Jone, as quick as lightning.
"Now, then," said I, when the woman had gone, "what are you going to
do if the coach comes?"
"Go to Virginia Water in it," said Jone, "and when we come back we
can go to the hotel. I made a mistake, but I've got to stand by it or be
called a greenhorn."
I was in hopes the four-in-hand wouldn't come, but in less than ten
minutes there drove up to our door a four-horse coach which, not
having half enough passengers, was glad to come such a little ways to
get some more. There was a man in a high hat and red coat, who was
blowing a horn as the thing came around the corner, and just as I was
looking into the coach and thinking we'd have it all to ourselves, for
there was nobody in it, he put a ladder up against the top, and says he,
touching his hat, "There's a seat for you, madam, right next the
coachman, and one just behind for the gentleman. 'Tain't often that, on
a fine morning like this, such seats as them is left