There followed six days of delirium, six days of the largest conceivable existence.  The holiday-makers stopped in a superb boarding-house on the promenade, one of about a thousand superb boarding-houses.  The day’s proceedings began at nine o’clock with a regal breakfast, partaken of at a very long table which ran into a bow window.  At nine o’clock, in all the thousand boarding-houses, a crowd of hungry and excited men and women sat down thus to a very long table, and consumed the same dishes, that is to say, Manx herrings, and bacon and eggs, and jams.  Everybody ate as much as he could.  William Henry was never content with less than two herrings, two eggs, about four ounces of bacon, and as much jam as would render a whole Board school sticky.  And in four hours after that he was ready for an enormous dinner, and so was she; and in five hours after that they neither of them had the slightest disinclination for a truly high and complex tea.  Of course, the cost was fabulous.  Thirty-five shillings per week each.  Annie would calculate that, with thirty boarders and extras, the boarding-house was taking in money at the rate of over forty pounds a week.  She would also calculate that about a hundred thousand herrings and ten million little bones were swallowed in Douglas each day.

But the cost of the boarding-house was as naught.  It was the flowing out of coins between meals that deprived Annie of breath.  They were always doing something.  Sailing in a boat!  Rowing in a boat!  Bathing!  The Pier!  Sand minstrels!  Excursions by brake, tram and train to Laxey, Ramsey, Sulby Glen, Port Erin, Snaefell!  Morning shows!  Afternoon shows!  Evening shows!  Circuses, music-halls, theatres, concerts!  And then the public balls, with those delicious tables in corners, lighted by Chinese lanterns, where you sat down and drew strange liquids up straws.  And it all meant money.  There were even places in Douglas where you couldn’t occupy a common chair for half a minute without paying for it.  Each night Annie went to bed exhausted with joy.  On the second night she counted the money in her bag, and said to William Henry: 

“How much money do you think we’ve spent already?  Just—­”

“Don’t tell me, lass!” he interrupted her curtly.  “When I want to know, I’ll ask ye.”

And on the fifth evening of this heaven he asked her: 

“What’n ye got left?”

She informed him that she had five pounds and twopence left, of which the boarding-house and tips would absorb four pounds.

“H’m!” he replied.  “It’s going to be a bit close.”