en talkin' through his hat. Why to get to
the Thames that bird'd have to go up the Stratford-on-Avon to Kingswood
cut, down the Warwick an' Birmingham to Budbrooke--with a trifle o'
twenty-one locks at Hatton to be worked or walked round; cross by the
Warwick an' Napton--another twenty-two locks; an' all the way down the
Oxford Canal, which from Napton is fifty miles good."

"She'd be an old bird before she got there, at our pace," Tilda agreed.
"But, o' course, Mr. Bossom, if we want to get to Stratford quick, an'
you don't, you'll make the pace what you like an' never mind us."

"Who said I didn' want to get to Stratford?" he asked almost fiercely,
and broke off with a groan.

"Oh, it's 'ard!--it's 'ard! . . . And me sittin' here calcilatin' eggs
an' milk domestic-like and thinkin' what bliss . . . But you don't
understand. O' course you don't. Why should you?"

Tilda placed her hands behind her back, eyed him for half-a-minute, and
sagely nodded.

"Well, I never!" she said. "Oh, my goodness gracious mercy me!"

"I can't think what you 're referrin' to," stammered Mr. Bossom.

"So we're in love, are we?"

He cast a guilty look around.

"There's Mortimer, comin' down the path, an' only two fields away."

"And it's a long story, is it? Well, I'll let you off this time," said
Tilda. "But listen to this, an' don't you fergit it. If along o' your
dawdlin' they lay hands on Arthur Miles here, I'll never fergive you--
no, never."

"You leave that to me, missie. And as for dawdlin', why if you
understood about canals you 'd know there's times when dawdlin' makes
the best speed. Now just you bear in mind the number o' things I've got
to think of. First, we'll say, there's you an' the boy. Well, who's
goin' to look for you here, aboard an innercent boat laid here between
locks an' waitin' till the full of her cargo comes down to Tizzer's
Green wharf or Ibbetson's? Next"--he checked off the items on his
fingers--"there's the Mortimers. In duty to 'Ucks, I got to choose
Mortimer a pitch where he'll draw a 'ouse. Bein' new to this job, I'd
like your opinion; but where, thinks I, 'll he likelier draw a 'ouse
than at Tizzer's Green yonder?--two thousand op'ratives, an' I doubt if
the place has ever seen a travellin' theayter since it started to grow.
Anyway, Mortimer has been pushin' inquiries: an' that makes Secondly.
Thirdly, I don't know much about play-actors, but Mortimer tells me he
gets goin' at se