“Hanged if I know exactly,” said Jem, puffing away; “only of course Wales is worth seeing.”
“So is France,” struck in Neddy; “why, you may go to Paris and stay a fortnight for I don’t know how little.”
“Aye, or to Edinburgh or the Lakes,” said Jem.
“I want to have the particulars though,” said I; “I’m not going to start off to some foreign place, and find myself with no money to spend and enjoy myself with, when I get there.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Neddy, jumping up, “I’ll just run round to the Working Men’s College, and borrow a Bradshaw from the secretary. We shall find all the cheap excursions there;” and away he went before we could say a word.
“I say,” said Jem to me, “how fond he is of bringing up that place; he’s always at me to go and enter there.”
“So he is at me,” said I, “and I think I shall, for he seems to pick up a lot of things there. How sharp he is at figures! and he knows more history and geography ten to one than I do. I’ll bet he knew what county Llangollen is in, and something about it too. Let’s ask him when he comes back.”
“Catch me!” said Jem; “he’ll look it out on the map on his way back, or ask one of the lecturers.”
“Here you are! look here!” said Neddy, tumbling in with two Bradshaws and a great atlas under his arm; “‘unprecedented attraction, pleasure excursions,’ let me see—Return tickets for Ireland, available for a fortnight. Waterford, 1l. 16s.; Cork, 2l.”
“Nonsense!” cried Jem, who had got the other Bradshaw; “listen here: ‘Channel Islands, (remarkable as being the only remaining Norman possessions of the British crown,) second class and fore cabin, 21s.”