“Oh, it was awful, my dabchick!” the lady cried, kissing him on both cheeks in an exaggerated foreign manner. “They were all down on us. I never knew what wretches tradesmen could be! They’ll be nicely fooled when they find the house shut up. But they deserved it. They behaved abominably.⁠ ⁠…” She caught herself up with a gasp, and turned, full of despotic abruptness, towards the patient Ramsgard porter. “Those are all mine! Three big ones and three little ones! You can come back for the other people’s when you’ve taken mine out! Is that bus there? It always used to be.”

Wolf took from her a basket she carried, which appeared full of the oddest assortment of objects; and they both followed the loaded little truck, pushed by the docile porter to the front of the station.

“There it is,” cried Mrs. Solent, “the old Ramsgard bus! Put them in⁠ ⁠… carefully now! Carefully now!”