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.
