I am not permitted to state the nature of our business, but that has nothing to do with this story. In order to avoid observation we travelled under assumed names by one of the slower and unfashionable ships to Liverpool. There was a gentleman on board who became very attentive to my mistress. Possibly it was her beautiful eyes; but as his antecedents were somewhat mysterious we did not wish to take any chances; so we left the boat express at a junction called Crewe, and made our way to Shrewsbury. Our self-constituted friend could not follow us without betraying himself, and so we got rid of him. We spent an hour or two in Shrewsbury viewing the sights, and went on to another old town in the west of England called Banchester. Here we learned that we could get an ordinary train to London at eight o'clock. It is a three hours' ride. We spent the interim in looking at the cathedral, and in dining at a quaint place called the New Inn, which it appeared was five hundred years old.
