But, after all, Jone and me didn't come here to London just to see the
town. We have ideas far ahead of that. When we was in London before I
saw pretty nearly all the sights, for when I've got work like that to
do I don't let the grass grow under my feet, and what we want to do on
this trip is to see the country part of England and Scotland. And in
order to see English country life just as it is, we both agreed that
the best thing to do was to take a little house in the country and live
there a while; and I'll say here that 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