You would have thought he had been going on a three months' voyage.

Nor will I describe the journey, for our business is now at the place.

He was met at the station by his aunt, a cheerful middle-aged woman, and conveyed in safety to the sleepy old town, as his father called it.

And no wonder that it was sleepy, for it was nearly dead of old age.
Diamond went about staring with his beautiful goggle-eyes, at the quaint old streets, and the shops, and the houses.

Everything looked very strange, indeed; for here was a town abandoned by its nurse, the sea, like an old oyster left on the shore till it gaped for weariness.