CHAPTER XI
The Gidger came in from a drive bursting with excitement and importance.
'Muvver, I've found you a house, it's the darlingest you ever saw, very old, and the drawing-room has got a pump in it, and there's a pig, too.'
'In the drawing-room, Gidger?' Ross inquired; 'that sounds as if it might do. Your mother likes a pig under her bed, and so did her grandmother.'
'Nannie and I went all over it, muvver. One of the bedrooms has a funny little place leading out of it, the lady said she thought it was a powdering closet.'
'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.