“Are we in time for the last train to Coventry?”
Chorus answers “Yes;” only one melancholy stripling insists that it isn’t likely.
BRETFORD
And he is right. We hear a rumble; a red eye flames out; the last train, with a hot trail of smoke, comes roaring over the bridge and shoots into Brandon station. We are too late.
“Beds?”
The melancholy one echoes: “Beds! In Brandon?”
“Well, you might try the inn.”
We march up to try the inn. There are forty-four men in the bar, as we have leisure to count, and all are drinking beer. Clearly we are not wanted. The landlady has eyes like beads, black and twinkling, but they will not rest on us. The outlook begins to be sombre, when P., who, beneath a rugged exterior, hides much aptitude for human affairs, announces that he has a way with landladies, and tries it. He says: