"Let's try Peters'!" they said; and scurried across the road.
Here they pulled without effect; the bell yielded to them immoderately, but no tinkle came. They regarded one another, discouraged.
"You had better leave us to our fate," sighed Rosalind.
"Are you dismissing me?" His tone was reproachful.
"Releasing you," she said, in her best St. James' manner.
"My chains are flowers," said he ornately.
"I wish you'd give 'em to me!" said Tattie Lascelles.
"You shall have them before we part. Ladies, I have an inspiration! You know the way to the Parade—let's go down there and get a fly. Then we've nothing more to do—the responsibility's the flyman's. We'll take him by the hour, and make him drive us about Blithepoint till we find a florist's. Is it carried?"
"Unanimously!" cried Rosalind. "Right about face, quick march!"
And there was a belated fly dozing by the pier. When the man had recovered from his astonishment at being hailed, he grew quite brisk, and developed ideas. He suggested "Mitchell's," and drove them to a fashionable florist's in the Mall. Nothing could have been happier. Mr. Mitchell accepted their apologies, and lit the gas as amiably as if bank-holidays were of no importance. Bountifully he brought forward his best for them, and his best was as beauteous as it was expensive.