This remark did not seem at all astonishing to George at the time. It became astonishing only as he thought of it later. He accepted the proposal of going to the sea as naturally as a New Yorker might accept a suggestion of riding on a Fifth Avenue bus to see Grant’s tomb. If McHarg had said he wanted to go to Liverpool or to Manchester or to Edinburgh, it would have been the same—George would have felt no astonishment whatever. Once out of London, both of these Americans, in their unconscious minds, were as little impressed by the dimensions of England as they would have been by a half-acre lot. When McHarg said he’d like the sea, George thought to himself: “Very well. We’ll just drive over to the other side of the island and take a look at it.”
So George thought the idea an excellent one and fell in with it enthusiastically, remarking that the salt air, the sound of the waves, and a good night’s sleep would do them both a world of good, and would make them fit and ready for further adventures in the morning. McHarg, too, began to show whole-hearted warmth for the plan. George asked him if he had any special place in mind. He said no, that it didn’t matter, that any place was good as long as it was on the sea. In rapid order they named over seacoast towns which they had either heard of or at one time or another had visited—Dover, Folkestone, Bournemouth, Eastbourne, Blackpool, Torquay, Plymouth.
“Plymouth! Plymouth!” cried McHarg with enthusiastic decision. “That’s the very place! I’ve been in there in ships dozens of times, but never stopped off. True, it’s in the harbour, but that doesn’t matter. It always looked like a nice little town. Let’s go there for the night.”
“Oh, sir,” spoke up the chauffeur, who till now had sat quietly at his wheel, listening to two maniacs dismember the geography of the British Isles. “Oh, sir,” he repeated, with an intonation of quite evident alarm, “you can’t do that, you know. Not tonight, sir. It’s quite himpossible to make Plymouth tonight.”
“What’s the reason it is?” McHarg demanded truculently.
“Because, sir,” said the driver, “it’s a good two ‘undred and fifty miles, sir. In this weather, what with rain and never knowing when the fog may close in again, it would take ite all of eight hours, sir, to do it. We should not arrive there, sir, until the small hours of the morning.
“Well, then, all right,” McHarg cried impatiently. “We’ll go somewhere else. How about Blackpool? Blackpool, eh, Georgie?” he said, turning to Webber feverishly, his lips lifting in a grimace of puckered nervousness. “Let’s try Blackpool. Never been there. Like to see the place.”
“But, sir”—the driver was now obviously appalled—“Blackpool—Blackpool, sir, is in the north of England. Why, sir,” he whispered, “Blackpool is even farther away than Plymouth is. It must be all of three ‘undred miles, sir,” he whispered, and the awe in his tone could not have been greater if they had just proposed an overnight drive from Philadelphia to the Pacific coast. “We couldn’t reach Blackpool, sir, before to-morrow morning.”
“Oh, well, then,” said McHarg in disgust. “Have it your own way. You name a place, George,” he demanded.
Webber thought earnestly for a long minute, then, fortified with memories of scenes from Thackeray and Dickens, he said hopefully: “Brighton. How about Brighton?”
Instantly he knew that he had hit it. The driver’s voice vibrated with a tone of unspeakable relief. He turned round in his seat and whispered with almost fawning eagerness:
“Yes, sir! Yes, sir! Brighton! We can do that very nicely, sir.”
“How long will it take?” McHarg demanded.
“I should think, sir,” said the driver, “I could do it from ‘ere in about two and a ‘arf hours. A bit late for dinner, sir, but still, it is within reach.”
“Good. All right,” McHarg said, nodding his head with decision and settling back in his seat. “Go ahead.” He waved one bony hand in a gesture of dismissal. “We’re going to Brighton.”