CHAPTER 7 MEWS FROM PERSIA

 When you hear that the four children found themselves at Waterloo Station quite un-taken-care-of, and with no one to meet them, it may make you think that their parents were neither kind nor careful.  But if you think this you will be wrong.  The fact is, mother arranged with Aunt Emma that she was to meet the children at Waterloo, when they went back from their Christmas holiday at Lyndhurst.  The train was fixed, but not the day.  Then mother wrote to Aunt Emma, giving her careful instructions about the day and the hour, and about luggage and cabs and things, and gave the letter to Robert to post.  But the hounds happened to meet near Rufus Stone that morning, and what is more, on the way to the meet they met Robert, and Robert met them, and instantly forgot all about posting Aunt Emma's letter, and never thought of it again until he and the others had wandered three times up and down the platform at Waterloo--which makes six in all--and had bumped against old gentlemen, and stared in the faces of ladies, and been shoved by people in a hurry, and 'by-your-leaved' by porters with trucks, and were quite, quite sure that Aunt Emma was not there. Then suddenly the true truth of what he had forgotten to do came home to Robert, and he said, 'Oh, crikey!' and stood still with his mouth open, and let a porter with a Gladstone bag in each hand and a bundle of umbrellas under one arm blunder heavily into him, and never so much as said, 'Where are you shoving to now?' or, 'Look out where you're going, can't you?'  The heavier bag smote him at the knee, and he staggered, but he said nothing.

When the others understood what was the matter I think they told Robert what they thought of him.

'We must take the train to Croydon,' said Anthea, 'and find Aunt Emma.'

'Yes,' said Cyril, 'and precious pleased those Jevonses would be to see us and our traps.'

Aunt Emma, indeed, was staying with some Jevonses--very prim people.  They were middle-aged and wore very smart blouses, and they were fond of matinees and shopping, and they did not care about children.

'I know MOTHER would be pleased to see us if we went back,' said Jane.

'Yes, she would, but she'd think it was not right to show she was pleased, because it's Bob's fault we're not met.  Don't I know the sort of thing?' said Cyril.  'Besides, we've no tin.  No; we've got enough for a growler among us, but not enough for tickets to the New Forest.  We must just go home.  They won't be so savage when they find we've really got home all right.  You know auntie was only going to take us home in a cab.'

'I believe we ought to go to Croydon,' Anthea insisted.

'Aunt Emma would be out to a dead cert,' said Robert.  'Those Jevonses go to the theatre every afternoon, I believe.  Besides, there's the Phoenix at home, AND the carpet.  I votes we call a four-wheeled cabman.'

A four-wheeled cabman was called--his cab was one of the old-fashioned kind with straw in the bottom--and he was asked by Anthea to drive them very carefully to their address.  This he did, and the price he asked for doing so was exactly the value of the gold coin grandpapa had given Cyril for Christmas.  This cast a gloom; but Cyril would never have stooped to argue about a cab- fare, for fear the cabman should think he was not accustomed to take cabs whenever he wanted them.  For a reason that was something like this he told the cabman to put the luggage on the steps, and waited till the wheels of the growler had grittily retired before he rang the bell.

'You see,' he