ted over the very
simple and familiar device for calling up the hotel desk. The device was
nothing more remarkable than the button of an ordinary electric bell,
which you were, in the usual way, to push once for bell-boy, twice for
ice-water, three times for chambermaid, and so on. However, the hotel
evidently regarded it as one of the marvels of advanced science and
referred to it, in solemnly printed "rules" for its use, as no less than
"The Emergency Drop Annunciator!" Angels of the Annunciation! what a
heavenly phrase!

But this is an ill-tempered chapter--let us begin another.

CHAPTER XX

ONIONS, PIGS AND HICKORY-NUTS

One feature of the countryside in which from time to time we found
innocent amusement was the blackboards placed outside farmhouses, on
which are written, that is, "annunciated," the various products the
farmer has for sale, such as apples, potatoes, honey, and so forth. On
one occasion we read: "Get your horses' teeth floated here." There was no
one to ask about what this mysterious proclamation meant. No doubt it was
clear as daylight to the neighbours, but to us it still remains a
mystery. Perhaps the reader knows what it meant. Then on another occasion
we read: "Onions and Pigs For Sale." Why this curious collocation of
onions and pigs? Colin suggested that, of course, the onions were to
stuff the pigs with.

"And here's an idea," he continued. "Suppose we go in and buy a little
suckling-pig and a string of onions. Then we will buy a yard of two of
blue ribbon and tie it round the pig's neck, and you shall lead it along
the road, weeping. I will walk behind it, with the onions, grinning from
ear to ear. And when any one meets us, and asks the meaning of the
strange procession, you will say: 'I am weeping because our little pig
has to die!' And if any one says to me, 'Why are you grinning from ear to
ear?' I shall answer, 'Because I am going to eat him. We are going to
stuff him with onions at the next inn, and eat roast pig at the rising of
the moon.'"

But we lacked courage to put our little joke into practice, fearing an
insufficient appreciation of the fantastic in that particular region.

We were now making for Watkins, and had spent the night at Bradford, a
particularly charming village almost lost amid the wooded hills of
another lovely and spacious valley, through which we had lyrically walked
the day before. Bradford is a real country village, and was already all
in a da