Page:Frank Stockton - Rudder Grange.djvu/183

Rh begin to-morrow mornin', for I've got a little business to do in the city which wouldn't be exactly the right thing for me to stoop to after I'm a earl, so I'll go in an' do it while I'm a common person, an' come back this afternoon, an' you can walk about an' look at the dry falls, an' amuse yourself gen'rally, till I come back.'

"'All right,' says I, an' off he goes.

"He came back afore dark, an' the nex' mornin' we got ready to start off.

"'Have you any particular place to go?' says he.

"'No,' says I, 'one place is as likely to be as good as another for our style o' thing. If it don't suit, we can imagine it does.'

"'That'll do,' says he, an' we had our trunk sent to the station, and walked ourselves. When we got there, he says to me—

"'Which number will you have, five or seven?'

"'Either one will suit me. Earl Miguel,' says I.

"'Jiguel,' says he, 'an' we'll make it seven. An' now I'll go an' look at the time-table, an' we'll buy tickets for the seventh station from here. The seventh station,' says he, comin' back, 'is Pokus. We'll go to Pokus.'

"So when the train come we got in, an' got out at Pokus. It was a pretty sort of a place, out in the country, with the houses scattered a long ways apart, like stingy chicken-feed.

"'Let's walk down this road,' says he, 'till we come to a good house for a castle, an' then we can ask 'em to take us to board, an' if they won't do it we'll go to the next, an' so on.'

"'All right,' says I, glad enough to see how pat he entered into the thing.

"We walked a good ways, an' passed some little