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'DEAR MR. HUCKS, This comes to say that we are not at Holmness yet, but getting on. This place is called Sharpness, and does a big trade, and the size of the shipping would make you wonder, after Bursfield. We left S.B. and the M.'s at Stratford, as per my favour "What does that mean?" asked the scribe, looking up. "It's what they always put into business letters." "But what does it mean?"
Miles Chandon owes me something, as I think I told you, and is a gentleman moreover." "Oh, very well, I'll send it, and I have only one other question. What precisely is your business at Bursfield?" Miss Sally grinned. "Hay-making," she answered, "while the sun shines that is to say, in Glasson's absence. I propose to make a considerable deal of hay. Something will depend on Mr.
Fetch it here in cabs; hire every cab you meet on the way; and when you've brought 'em, tell 'em to wait!" An hour later a procession of fifteen cabs drove up to the Grand Central Hotel, Bursfield, to the frank dismay of hall-porters and manager; a dismay which Miss Sally accepted with the lordliest indifference. "You see that they're stowed," she advised Mr.
"Well," said he, "you've done it clever. You've done it so mighty clever that I don't see why you come to me to help. I can't order barts about." "No," said Miss Sally; "in this part of the business I fear you cannot help. Read that, please." She spread open the telegraph form which she had been holding all this while, and laid it on the desk before him. "Breward, Grand Central Hotel, Bursfield."
The streets of this Bursfield suburb were far from suggestive of the New Jerusalem a City of which, by the way, Tilda had neither read nor heard. They were, in fact, mean and squalid, begrimed with smoke and imperfectly scavenged. But they were, at least, populous, and to Tilda the faces in the tram and on the pavements wore, each and all, a friendly almost an angelic glow.
Purdie J. Glasson, Holy Innocents' Orphanage, Bursfield, near Birmingham leastways, I can't read the last line clear, the paper bein' frayed; but it's bound to be what I've said." "Why?" "Why, because that's the address. Holy Innocents, down by the canal I know it, o' course, and Dr. Glasson. Damper supplied 'em with milk for over six months, an' trouble enough we had to get our money."
So I conclude you wish to see him personally. Are you pardon the question a friend of his?" "Not a personal friend, ma'am. I came to see him on a matter of business." "From Bursfield," said Miss Sally, with a glance at the card. It was a superstition with Glasson to tell the truth about trifles. "From Plymouth, to be exact, ma'am. I have been indulging in a er brief holiday."
"But, my dear lady, why this sudden curiosity about Bursfield and its hotels?" "Because, my dear man, I'm going there, to-night; by the 7.12. Butts has just carried my portmanteau upstairs." "Your portmanteau?" "Yes; I don't believe in trunks and dress boxes my things will bear folding, and Humphreys" meaning her maid "is already folding 'em. Man, don't stare.
Show-folks," he added thoughtfully, "likes travellin' by night, I'm told. It's cooler." Two hours later, as the Brewery clock struck eleven, a canal-boat, towed by a glimmering grey horse, glided southward under the shadow of the Orphanage wall. It passed this and the iron bridge, and pursued its way through the dark purlieus of Bursfield towards the open country.
"Where are the children?" she asked. "Nowhere in sight." "That's odd. Tossell's punctual in everything as a rule rent included. Well, I must leave you to keep an eye on them. . . . Do you know anything about Bursfield? The best hotel there, for instance?
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