This was on the strength of my having invested in a guidebook, though both my companions seemed to place themselves in my hands, and looked up to me as being crammed with a vast amount of knowledge about Cardinal Wolsey, Henry the Eighth, and those who had made the palace their home.
So I took them to see the Orangery, which Revitts, who seemed quite out of temper, looked down upon with contempt.
“Bah!” he exclaimed; “call them oranges! Why, I could go and buy twice as good in Grey’s Inn Lane for three a penny. That there woman, Ant’ny, what was her name?”
“What woman?”
“Her as committed big-a-mee?”
“Oh, do adone with such stuff, William dear. Now, Master Antony, what’s next?”
“I know,” said Revitts oracularly, “Mrs Simmons. I say she ought to have been examined before a police magistrate, and after proper adjournments, and the case regularly made up by the sergeant who had it in charge, she ought to have been committed for trial.”
“Oh, William dear, do adone,” cried Mary, clinging to his arm.
“Cent. Crim. Court—”
“William!”