“Well, besides Mr. Moresby’s, there’s four others altogether. If you’d like to step up in a minute or two and see ’em, you could choose which ones you’d like.”
“We won’t bother. We’ll take them all.”
“What, all four of ’em?”
“Yes; then we can have a bedroom and a sitting-room apiece, you see.”
“But there’s a sitting-room downstairs I could let you ’ave. A proper sitting-room.”
“Is there? Good! Then we’ll take that too. I love proper sitting-rooms. That’ll be five rooms altogether, won’t it? I should think that ought to be enough for us. What would you say, Anthony?”
“I think that might be enough,” Anthony assented.
“You see, landlord? My friend agrees with me. Then that’s settled.”
“It’ll cost you more, sir,” the landlord demurred in some bewilderment.
“Of course it will!” Roger agreed heartily. “Ever so much more. But that can’t be helped. My friend is a very faddy man—a very faddy man indeed; and if he thinks we ought to have five rooms, then five rooms we shall have to have. I’m very sorry, landlord, but you see how it is. And now I expect you’d like us to pay you a deposit, wouldn’t you? Of course. And after that, there are our bags and things to be got from the station, if you’ve got a spare man about the place; and you might tell him from me that if the red-faced man who hands them over begins to make curious noises all of a sudden, he needn’t take offence; it only means that he’s just seen a joke that someone told him the year Queen Victoria was born. Let’s see now; a deposit, you said, didn’t you? Here’s ten pounds. You might make me out a receipt for it, and be careful to mention all five rooms on the receipt or I shall be getting into trouble with my friend. Thanks very much.”