The idea of paying two shillings and sixpence for one miserable bottle vanished at the richly-coloured prospect.  “That’ll show him something of what London is,” thought Anthony; and a companion thought told him in addition that the farmer, with a skinful of wine, would emerge into the open air imagining no small things of the man who could gain admittance into those marvellous caverns.  “By George! it’s like a boy’s story-book,” cried Anthony, in his soul, and he chuckled over the vision of the farmer’s amazement—­acted it with his arms extended, and his hat unseated, and plunged into wheezy fits of laughter.

He met his guests at the station.  Mr. Fleming was soberly attired in what, to Anthony’s London eye, was a curiosity costume; but the broad brim of the hat, the square cut of the brown coat, and the leggings, struck him as being very respectable, and worthy of a presentation at any Bank in London.

“You stick to a leather purse, brother William John?” he inquired, with an artistic sentiment for things in keeping.

“I do,” said the farmer, feeling seriously at the button over it.

“All right; I shan’t ask ye to show it in the street,” Anthony rejoined, and smote Rhoda’s hand as it hung.

“Glad to see your old uncle—­are ye?”

Rhoda replied quietly that she was, but had come with the principal object of seeing her sister.

“There!” cried Anthony, “you never get a compliment out of this gal.  She gives ye the nut, and you’re to crack it, and there maybe, or there mayn’t be, a kernel inside—­she don’t care.”

“But there ain’t much in it!” the farmer ejaculated, withdrawing his fingers from the button they had been teasing for security since Anthony’s question about the purse.

“Not much—­eh! brother William John?” Anthony threw up a puzzled look.  “Not much baggage—­I see that—­” he exclaimed; “and, Lord be thanked! no trunks.  Aha, my dear”—­he turned to Rhoda—­“you remember your lesson, do ye?  Now, mark me—­I’ll remember you for it.  Do you know, my dear,” he said to Rhoda confidentially, “that sixpenn’orth of chaff which I made the cabman pay for—­there was the cream of it!—­that was better than Peruvian bark to my constitution.  It was as good to me as a sniff of sea-breeze and no excursion expenses.  I’d like another, just to feel young again, when I’d have backed myself to beat—­cabmen?  Ah!  I’ve stood up, when I was a young ’un, and shut up a Cheap Jack at a fair.  Circulation’s the soul o’ chaff.  That’s why I don’t mind tackling cabmen—­they sit all day, and all they’ve got to say is ‘rat-tat,’ and they’ve done.  But I let the boys roar.  I know what I was when a boy myself.  I’ve got devil in me—­never you fear—­but it’s all on the side of the law.  Now, let’s off, for the gentlemen are starin’ at you, which won’t hurt ye, ye know, but makes me jealous.”

Before the party moved away from the platform, a sharp tussle took place between Anthony and the farmer as to the porterage of the bulky bag; but it being only half-earnest, the farmer did not put out his strength, and Anthony had his way.