they arrived at
Hanbridge Railway Station, which was a tempest of traffic that Saturday
before Bank Holiday. The whole of the Five Towns appeared to be going
away. The first thing that startled Annie was that William Henry gave
the ragged boy a shilling, quite as much as the youth could have earned
in a couple of days in a regular occupation. William Henry was also
lavish with a porter. When they arrived, after a journey of ten minutes,
at Knype, where they had to change for Liverpool, he was again lavish
with a porter. And the same thing happened at Crewe, where they had to
change once more for Liverpool. They had time at Crewe for an expensive
coloured drink. On the long seething platform William Henry gave Annie
all his money to keep.

"Here, lass!" he said. "This'll be safer with you than with me."

She was flattered.

When it came in, the Liverpool train was crammed to the doors. And two
hundred people pumped themselves into it, as air is forced into a
pneumatic tyre. The entire world seemed to be going to Liverpool. It was
uncomfortable, but it was magnificent. It was joy, it was life. The
chimneys and kilns of the Five Towns were far away. And Annie, though in
a cold perspiration lest she might never see her tin trunk again, was
feverishly happy. At Liverpool William Henry demanded silver coins from
her. She had a glimpse of her trunk. Then they rattled and jolted and
whizzed in an omnibus to Prince's Landing Stage. And William Henry
demanded more coins from her. A great ship awaited them. Need it be said
that Douglas was their destination? The deck of the great ship was like
a market-place. Annie had never seen such a thing. They climbed up into
the market-place among the shouting, gesticulating crowd. There was a
real shop, at which William Henry commanded her to buy a hat-guard. The
hat-guard cost sixpence. At home sixpence was sixpence, and would buy
seven pounds of fine mealy potatoes; but here sixpence was
nothing--certainly it was not more than a halfpenny. They wandered and
found other shops. Annie could not believe that all those solid shops
and the whole market-place could move. And she was not surprised, a
little later, to see Prince's Landing Stage sliding away from the ship,
instead of the ship sliding away from Prince's Landing Stage. Then they
went underground, beneath the market-place, and Annie found marble
halls, colossal staircases, bookshops, trinket shops, highly-decorated
restaurants, gli