"You asking about double-decker buses? I couldn't contradict him straight out, you know; in the mood he's in now it'd be as much as my job's worth. You want to use a double-decker, or just to know if they ever run at all? Because you can't get a double-decker on that route, not to travel in, because the buses on that run are all—"
"I know, I know. They are single-decks. What I wanted to know was whether there ever are two-deck buses on the Milford route."
"Well, there are not supposed to be, you understand, but once or twice this year we've had to use a double-decker when one of the old single ones broke down unexpected. Sooner or later they'll be all double-deck, but there isn't enough traffic on the Milford run to justify a double, so all the old crocks of singles eventually land on that route and a few more like it. And so—"
"You're a great help. Would it be possible to find out exactly when a double-decker did run on that route?"
"Oh, certainly," the mechanic said, with a shade of bitterness. "In this firm it's recorded every time you spit. But the records are in there," he tilted back his head to indicate the office, "and as long as he's there there's nothing doing."
Robert asked at what hour there would be something doing.
"Well: he goes off at the same time as me: six. But I could wait a few minutes and look up the schedules when he's gone if it's very important to you."
Robert did not know how he was going to wait through the hours till six o'clock, but six o'clock it would have to be.
"Righto. I'll meet you in the Bell, that's the pub at the end of the street, about a quarter past six. That do?"
That would do perfectly, Robert said. Perfectly.