Sentence The Fourhundredandfortyfourth

Gertie was extremely relieved when the train arrived in Berlin exactly at the announced time – achieved, it should be said, by a twentythree minute stop just two miles before the station, during which several passengers were seen alighting from it and walking along the track, but when she pointed this out to Palestrina, her new friend gave that tinkly laugh which reminded Gertie of the indescribably sweet WPC Isa Urquhart, her cousin and mentor, and Gertie wondered what had become of all her family and friends, and whether they were missing her; but then they arrived, to all the bustle of a great terminus, and the two girls found themselves, in the company of a hulking porter, pushing their way through the mass of humanity which always seems drawn to such a place, lovers to plight their troth, and enemies their wroth – though, in all probability, they are only other travellers in the process of arriving or departing, just like oneself – and then they were flung into a taxi, with their luggage strapped into an open space beside the driver, and en route to The Grand Babylon Hotel,

which Pal confided, was not quite so Babylonian as it used to be; “alas, old Felix Babylon has semi-retired to sunnier and more amenable climes, you'll remember him from Arnold Bennett's tale set in the London establishment, which sadly has gone down in the world and now belongs to that vulgar man, Hilton, but although Felix has left, this Grand Babylon, which was the first and most

opulent of his Hotels, still has something of the lustre it possessed of old, and is now managed by Felix's heir assumptive, Ferdinand, Count Tantamount – a Palatine, and, whisper it, reputedly a 'love-child' of Old Kaiser Bill, so that's tres felicitous – still draws guests from all over the known world, and beyond! but, forsooth, we needs must send up our trousseaux to our roomsand then we can take a few minutes for a little drink in The Rotunda, to calm our frayed nerves after that nerve-racking taxi ride, but la! Gertie – you see there,” she pointed towards a fine orthographic depiction of Babylon in which the calligrapher had been able to represent the famous Hanging Gardens in his (or her!) Arabic lettering: “oh,” breathed Gertie, “it's abso-bloody-lutely Divine!”