Page:Nine Unlikely Tales.djvu/21

Rh “I fear,” he said kindly, “that you must have taken, by some unfortunate misunderstanding, the wrong omnibus.”

“When does the next go back?”

“The omnibus does not go back. It runs from Brixton here once a month, but it doesn’t go back.”

“But how does it get to Brixton again, to start again, I mean,” asked Matilda.

“We start a new one every time,” said the driver, raising his three-cornered hat once more.

“And what becomes of the old ones?” Matilda asked.

“Ah,” said the driver, smiling, “that depends. One never knows beforehand, things change so nowadays. Good morning. Thank you so much for your patronage. No, on no account, Madam.”

He waved away the eightpence which Pridmore was trying to offer him for the fare from Brixton, and drove quickly off.

When they looked round them, no, this was certainly not Streatham Common. The wrong omnibus had brought them to a strange village—the neatest, sweetest, reddest, greenest, cleanest, prettiest village in the world. The houses were grouped round a