Two passengers called her attention eagerly to a couple walking along by the railings, arm-in-arm; gave a fervid assurance.
“Well, well, well!” fanning herself with an ungloved hand. “To think of him strolling along with a pipe in his mouth, for all the world like an ordinary individual! And not over-dressed neither. That’s something more for me to tell ’em when I get home. Wouldn’t have missed the sight for anything. But I were always under the impression that he was a gentleman with a beard.”
“Shaves it off, just about this time, every year.”
“I see,” she remarked contentedly. “More for the sake of change, I suppose, than anything. Talking of that, I suppose there’s nobody here could oblige me with silver for a sovereign?”
Out of sheer gratitude to an admirable target, they found the coins she required, and in giving her thanks she mentioned that the sooner now that she reached Notting Hill the better she would be pleased. They seemed to have a desire to conceal the truth, but the conductor happened to overhear the statement; he rang the bell sharply and informed her she was going in the wrong direction. She asked him to explain, pointing out that his conveyance certainly bore the words Notting Hill, and suggesting that he was possibly making a mistake; the delay to the motor-omnibus induced her fellow-travellers to declare that the conductor was telling the truth, and she bade them separately and collectively goodbye, expressing a hope that she might be so fortunate as to meet them again on some future visit to town.
“And which way do I go now, young man?”
“You get off the step,” replied the irritated conductor. “You cross the roadway. You take a ’bus going West.”
“Which do you call West?”
The motor-omnibus restarted. Passengers gazed amusedly at her, craning necks in the hope of witnessing one more diverting incident; as she vanished they became quite friendly, wondering whether she would ever reach her destination, and speaking of the simplicity and foolishness of country folk.