“Oh, I do wish you could, for it’s getting late to go on, and we’re so tired.”
“It would be no better to go on, Miss, the rooms at all the places is full, I know. It’s like this, you see, Miss.” Mrs. Tregennis again smoothed her apron. “Two young gentlemen really belongs to a party at my sister-in-law’s and only sleeps here, they have one bedroom. Another young gentleman has the other bedroom and the upstairs sitting-room. If it should be as how he would have a chair-bed in his sitting-room for the night, then you could have his room.”
“Well, I do hope he will, Mrs. ——?”
“Tregennis, Miss.”
“But Mrs. Tregennis, if the young gentleman doesn’t wish to sleep on a chair-bed what shall we do?”
“There’s the Royal Standard, Miss.”
“No, we had a very unsatisfactory lunch there, badly cooked and badly served; the waitress wore a dirty apron and her hair was in curling pins. We really couldn’t go there!”
“Well, Miss, will you call again in an hour’s time; the young gentleman will be in then, and I’ll let you know for certain.”
“Tom,” she said, when they had left, “there’s two young ladies asking for rooms for the night. They’re on a cycling tour, but they’d no bikes with them, and they hadn’t a scrap of luggage. I’ve said I’ll take them if the young gentleman doesn’t mind the chair-bed.”
Tregennis slowly uncrossed his legs as he sat in front of the kitchen fire, and with his forefinger re-arranged the tobacco in the bowl of his pipe. “Well, Ellen,” he said slowly, “and suppose they be just frauds?”