Mr. Britling's address was the Dower House, and it was, Mr. Britling's
note had explained, on the farther edge of the park at Claverings.
Claverings! The very name for some stately home of England....

And yet this was only forty-two miles from London. Surely it brought
things within the suburban range. If Matching's Easy were in America,
commuters would live there. But in supposing that, Mr. Direck displayed
his ignorance of a fact of the greatest importance to all who would
understand England. There is a gap in the suburbs of London. The suburbs
of London stretch west and south and even west by north, but to the
north-eastward there are no suburbs; instead there is Essex. Essex is
not a suburban county; it is a characteristic and individualised county
which wins the heart. Between dear Essex and the centre of things lie
two great barriers, the East End of London and Epping Forest. Before a
train could get to any villadom with a cargo of season-ticket holders it
would have to circle about this rescued woodland and travel for twenty
unprofitable miles, and so once you are away from the main Great Eastern
lines Essex still lives in the peace of the eighteenth century, and
London, the modern Babylon, is, like the stars, just a light in the
nocturnal sky. In Matching's Easy, as Mr. Britling presently explained
to Mr. Direck, there are half-a-dozen old people who have never set eyes
on London in their lives--and do not want to.

"Aye-ya!"

"Fussin' about thea."

"Mr. Robinson, 'e went to Lon', 'e did. That's 'ow 'e 'urt 'is fut."