The railway station at Browndean was, of course, out of the question, for it would now be a centre of curiosity and gossip, and (of all things) they would be least able to dispatch a dead body without remark.

John feebly proposed getting an ale-cask and sending it as beer, but the objections to this course were so overwhelming that Morris scorned to answer.

The purchase of a packing-case seemed equally hopeless, for why should two gentlemen without baggage of any kind require a packing-case?
They would be more likely to require clean linen.
'We are working on wrong lines,' cried Morris at last.

'The thing must be gone about more carefully.

Suppose now,' he added excitedly, speaking by fits and starts, as if he were thinking aloud, 'suppose we rent a cottage by the month.