And they started immediately.
It would take too long to tell you how they got on at each house. From some they were sent away; at others they met with sympathy.
Their words to the servant who opened the door were: “Please give your mistress the compliments of No. 23, and ask if she really wants street music to be prohibited.”
“Of course we don’t, my dears,” said an old lady at No. 14. “We should love to have a nice pianoforte organ every now and then, or even a band; but it would never do to say so. Every one is so select about here. Why, in that house opposite lives the widow of a Lord Mayor.”
Claire made a note of the number to tell Betty, who loved rank and grandeur, and then they ascended the next steps, where they found the most useful person of all, a gentleman who came down to see them, smoking a pipe and wearing carpet slippers. “In reply to your question,” he said, “I should welcome street music; but the matter has nothing to do either with me or with you. It is all settled by the old lady at the corner, the house to which the notice-board is fixed. It is she who owns the property, and it is she who stops the organs. If you want to do any good you must see her. Her name is Miss Seaton, and as you will want a little cake and lemonade to give you strength for the interview, you had better come in here for a moment.” So saying he led them into the dining-room, which was hung with coloured pictures of hunting and racing, and made them very comfortable, and then sent them on with best wishes for good luck.
Telling Claire to wait a moment, Christopher ran off to their own house for the board, and returned quickly with it wrapped up under his arm. He rang the bell of the corner house boldly, and then, seeing a notice which ran, “Do not knock unless an answer is required,” knocked boldly, too. It was opened by an elderly butler. “Please tell Miss Seaton that Mr. and Miss Morgan from No. 23 would like to see her,” said Christopher.
“On what business?” asked the butler.
“On important business to Westerham Gardens,” said Christopher.
“Wait here a moment,” said the butler, and creaked slowly upstairs. “Here” was the hall, and they sat on a polished mahogany form, with a little wooden roller at each end, exactly opposite a stuffed dancing bear with his arms hungry for umbrellas. Upstairs they heard a door open and a muttered conversation, and then the door shut and the butler creaked slowly down again.
“Will you come this way?” he said, and creaked slowly up once more, followed by the children, who had great difficulty in finding the steps at that pace, and showed them into a room in which was sitting an old lady in a high-backed arm-chair near the fire. On the hearthrug were five cats, and there was one in her lap and one on the table. “Oh!” thought Claire, “if only Betty was here!” For Betty not only loved rank and grandeur but adored cats.