also boasted an inn. It was hard to have to turn some two or
three miles out of my road at that late hour on a chance of a
shelter for the night, but there was nothing else to do, so on
to Norton I went with heavy steps, and arrived a little after
sunset, more tired and hungry than ever, only to be told at
the inn that they had no accommodation for me, that their one
spare room had been engaged! "What am I to do, then?" I
demanded of the landlord. "Beyond this village I cannot go
to-night--do you want me to go out and sleep under a hedge?"
He called his spouse, and after some conversation they said
the village baker might be able to put me up, as he had a
spare bedroom in his house. So to the baker's I went, and
found it a queer, ramshackle old place, standing a little back
from the village street in a garden and green plot with a few
fruit trees growing on it. To my knock the baker himself came
out--a mild-looking, flabby-faced man, with his mouth full, in
a very loose suit of pyjama-like garments of a bluish floury
colour. I told him my story, and he listened, swallowing his
mouthful, then cast his eyes down and rubbed his chin, which
had a small tuft of hairs growing on it, and finally said, "I
don't know. I must ask my wife. But come in and have a cup
of tea--we're just having a cup ourselves, and perhaps you'd
like one."

I could have told him that I should like a dozen cups and a
great many slices of bread-and-butter, if there was nothing
else more substantial to be had. However, I only said, "Thank
you," and followed him in to where his wife, a nice-looking
woman, with black hair and olive face, was seated behind the
teapot. Imagine my surprise when I found that besides tea