“You don’t know the name of the place?” I asked the man anxiously.
“The chauffeur did tell me, but it was a funny name, an’ I’ve forgotten.”
“They’ve gone direct to Exeter, in any case?”
“Yes—by Dorchester, Chard and Honiton. ’E asked me about the road.”
“How far is it to Exeter?”
“About seventy-eight or eighty miles.”
“I could get there by train before they arrived,” I remarked.
“Ah! I doubt it, sir,” was the man’s reply. “That’s a good car they’ve got, and if you went by train you’d ’ave to go right up to Yeovil. They’d be through Exeter long before you got there.”
“That’s so,” remarked the hotel proprietor. “From here to Exeter by rail is a long cross-country journey.”
“Then could I get a car? Is any one of these for hire?”