The "Duchess" prepared to deal.
"Who's got an address for the next town?" she inquired.
"Haven't you written yet?"
"No, we haven't got a place to write to; hateful, isn't it? If there's a thing I loathe, it's having to look for rooms after we get in. We've —pass!—always stayed in the same house, and—everybody to put in the kitty again!—and now the woman's left, or something. My! isn't the kitty getting big—look at all those sixpences underneath. Somebody count it!"
"Now then, Carew, don't go to sleep!"
Carew, thus adjured, gathered up the cards. Fitfully he was almost himself again, and only Mary was really sure that anything was amiss.
"There's a little hotel I've stopped at there," he said. "Not at all bad—they find you everything for twenty-five bob the week; for two people there'd be a reduction, too. Remind me, and I'll give you the name; I have it in my book. Bowman, you to call!"
Bowman called nothing; everybody passed again, and the kitty was augmented once more.
"What time do we travel Sunday—anybody know?"
"You can be precious sure," said Bowman, "that it will be at some unearthly hour. I've had a good many years' experience in the profession, but I never in my life was in a company where they did so many night journeys as they do in this one. I believe that little outsider arranges it on purpose!"