Pomonas Travels | Page 3

run over
would do it, you may be sure.
But, after all, Jone and me didn't come here to London just to see the
town. We have ideas far ahead of that. When we was in London before
I saw pretty nearly all the sights, for when I've got work like that to do I
don't let the grass grow under my feet, and what we want to do on this
trip is to see the country part of England and Scotland. And in order to
see English country life just as it is, we both agreed that the best thing
to do was to take a little house in the country and live there a while; and
I'll say here that this is the only plan of the whole journey that Jone gets
real enthusiastic about, for he is a domestic man, as you well know, and
if anything swells his veins with fervent rapture it is the idea of living
in some one place continuous, even if it is only for a month.
As we wanted a house in the country we came to London to get it, for
London is the place to get everything. Our landlady advised us, when
we told her what we wanted, to try and get a vicarage in some little
village, because, she said, there are always lots of vicars who want to
go away for a month in the summer, and they can't do it unless they
rent their houses while they are gone. And in fact, some of them, she
said, got so little salary for the whole year, and so much rent for their
vicarages while they are gone, that they often can't afford to stay in
places unless they go away.
So we answered some advertisements, and there was no lack of them in
the papers, and three agents came to see us, but we did not seem to

have any luck. Each of them had a house to let which ought to have
suited us, according to their descriptions, and although we found the
prices a good deal higher than we expected, Jone said he wasn't going
to be stopped by that, because it was only for a little while and for the
sake of experience--and experience, as all the poets, and a good many
of the prose writers besides, tell us, is always dear. But after the agents
went away, saying they would communicate with us in the morning, we
never heard anything more from them, and we had to begin all over
again. There was something the matter, Jone and I both agreed on that,
but we didn't know what it was. But I waked up in the night and
thought about this thing for a whole hour, and in the morning I had an
idea.
"Jone," said I, when we was eating breakfast, "it's as plain as A B C
that those agents don't want us for tenants, and it isn't because they
think we are not to be trusted, for we'd have to pay in advance, and so
their money's safe; it is something else, and I think I know what it is.
These London men are very sharp, and used to sizing and sorting all
kinds of people as if they was potatoes being got ready for market, and
they have seen that we are not what they call over here gentlefolks."
"No lordly airs, eh?" said Jone.
"Oh, I don't mean that," I answered him back; "lordly airs don't go into
parsonages, and I don't mean either that they see from our looks or
manners that you used to drive horses and milk cows and work in the
garden, and that I used to cook and scrub and was maid-of-all-work on
a canal-boat; but they do see that we are not the kind of people who are
in the habit, in this country, at least, of spending their evenings in the
best parlors of vicarages."
"Do you suppose," said Jone, "that they think a vicar's kitchen would
suit us better?"
"No," said I, "they wouldn't put us in a vicarage at all; there wouldn't be
no place there that would not be either too high or too low for us. It's
my opinion that what they think we belong in is a lordly house, where
you'd shine most as head butler or a steward, while I'd be the

housekeeper or a leading lady's maid."
"By George!" said Jone, getting up from the table, "if any of those
fellows would favor me with an opinion like that I'd break his head."
"You'd have a lot of heads to break," said I, "if you went through this
country asking for opinions on the subject. It's all very well for us to
remember that we've got