No use worrying about that, not yet. Taking a couple of deep breaths to calm herself, Vinnie shoves her luggage back toward the terminal, hoping for the miraculous apparition of a taxi. There is none, of course; only a mob of Sun Tourists and their luggage waiting to board a chartered bus. She is about to retreat when Mr. Hobbs/Mumpson hails her. He is now wearing a tan cowboy hat trimmed with feathers and a fleece-lined sheepskin coat, and is hung about with cameras, making him look even more than ever like the caricature of an American tourist, Western division.

“Hi there! What’s the trouble?”

“Nothing,” says Vinnie repressively, realizing that her state of mind must be engraved upon her countenance. “1 was just looking for a taxi.”

Mr. Mumpson stares out across the empty, rain-sloshed, light-streaked pavement. “Don’t seem to be any here.”

“No.” She manages a brief defensive smile. “Apparently they all turn into pumpkins at midnight.”

“Huh? Oh, ha-ha. Listen, I know what. You can come on the bus with us. It’s going right into town: centrally located hotel, said so in the brochure. Bet you can get a cab there.”

Over her weak, weary protests, he plunges into the crowd and returns a minute later to report that it is all fixed up. Luckily, since Vinnie and Mr. Mumpson are the last to board, they have to sit separately, and she is spared any more of his conversation.

The journey to London passes in a silent blur of weariness. Though Vinnie has often been abroad, this is her first (and she hopes last) ride on a tour bus. She has of course often seen them from the street, and observed with a mixture of scorn and pity the tourists packed inside, gazing out with weak fishy stares through the thick green distorting glass of their rolling aquariums at the strange, soundless world outside.