"Very," said Jack. "The office is run by a Miss Staveley, and she seems to give satisfaction. But it depends rather on what you want. Through the shop and up the stairs."
"I'll try," said the American. "These chancey things often pan out best."
He ascended the stairs, and after Jan had, in Dolly's phrase, passed the rule over him, he was admitted to Ben.
"My name's Barclay Corbet," he began. "I see you solve Domestic Problems, so perhaps you can solve mine. This is what I'm becking and calling about: I want to spend a few weeks in real England. Not the England that most of my countrymen are shown, but something that you'd call essentially 'old world.' Don't mention a cathedral," he added hastily; "I've had all the cathedrals I want and all the vergers. Don't mention a watering place, or the Dukeries, or anything like that. Don't mention Oxford or Cambridge. And above all don't mention Stratford-on-Avon. I want retirement. What I want is a place where there's no railway within miles, no corrugated iron roofs, no waiters in clawhammer coats, but pretty waiting-maids named Kate and Lucy instead, and no boys calling winners. And I want there to be a saddler in it making saddles in the midst of the smell of leather, and a churchyard with the graves all crooked and all over moss. And spaniels; yes, there must be spaniels. And another thing, a rookery. Can you do this?"
Ben furrowed her forehead.
"I wonder," she said, "if Shaftesbury would do? It's in Dorset; very old, very quiet and self-contained, and high up on a hill like an Italian town, like Siena."
"That settles it," said Mr. Corbet. "If it's high on a hill, it's no good to me. I've had all the climbing I want. And if it's like anything Italian, it can fade away into the back seats. I've done with macaroni. No," he went on, "think again. Think of something where there's a river to loaf beside and a water mill."
"A water mill! Oh, I know," exclaimed Ben—"Bibury!"
"You seem mighty struck on places ending in 'bury'," said her client.
"It was you who insisted on a churchyard," Ben retaliated.