Explore "An Act in a Backwater" by E.F. Benson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A fortnight later Jeannie, Miss Fortescue, and Arthur were all staying at the Black Eagle Hotel, employed in settling in. Morton had been let, but let unfurnished, and in order to avoid the expense of storing, it was laid upon them that they should cram as much furniture into 8 Bolton Street as it would possibly hold. Thus from morning to night the greater part of the street was congested with Pantechnicon vans, and Jeannie and Arthur might be seen many hours a day measuring wardrobes, and finding for the most part that they would not go into any of the rooms. Miss Fortescue sat in a large chair in the middle of the street and made scathing comments on the appearance and behaviour of the others.
"I little thought," said this magisterial lady one day, "that the time would come when I should see my nephew in his shirt-sleeves wrestling with towel-horses in the Queen's highway."