In fact, we are putting two, and
even three gentlemen in one bed, as it is."
This staggered us for a bit.
But Harris, who is an old traveller, rose to the occasion, and, laughing
cheerily, said:
"Oh, well, we can't help it. We must rough it. You must give us a
shake-down in the billiard-room."
"Very sorry, sir. Three gentlemen sleeping on the billiard-table
already, and two in the coffee-room. Can't possibly take you in to-
night."
We picked up our things, and went over to the Manor House. It was a
pretty little place. I said I thought I should like it better than the
other house; and Harris said, "Oh, yes," it would be all right, and we
needn't look at the man with the red hair; besides, the poor fellow
couldn't help having red hair.
Harris spoke quite kindly and sensibly about it.
The people at the Manor House did not wait to hear us talk. The landlady
met us on the doorstep with the greeting that we were the fourteenth
party she had turned away within the last hour and a half. As for our
meek suggestions of stables, billiard-room, or coal-cellars, she laughed
them all to scorn: all these nooks had been snatched up long ago.
Did she know of any place in the whole village where we could get shelter
for the night?
"Well, if we didn't mind roughing it - she did not recommend it, mind -
but there was a little beershop half a mile down the Eton road - "
We waited to hear no more; we caught up the hamper and the bags, and the
coats and rugs, and parcels, and ran.
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