On the second terrace some thirty little girls and boys were digging in time to their own singing. A red-haired young woman, clad in breeches and sweater, shouted the rhythmic orders. Troy was just in time to see a little boy in the back row deliberately heave a spadeful of soil down the neck of a near-by little girl. Singing shrilly, she retaliated by catching him a swinging smack across the rump with the flat of her spade.

‘And Down and Kick and Heave. Back,’ shouted the young woman, waving cheerfully to Paul and Fenella.

‘Come over here!’ Fenella screamed. The young woman left her charges and strode towards them. The singing continued, but with less vigour. She was extremely pretty. Fenella introduced her: Miss Caroline Able. She shook hands firmly with Troy, who noticed that the little girl, having downed the little boy, now sat on his face and had begun methodically to plaster his head with soil. In order to do this she had been obliged first to remove a curious white cap. Several of the other children, Troy noticed, wore similar caps.

‘You’re keeping them hard at it, aren’t you, Carol?’ said Fenella.

‘We stop in five minutes. It’s extraordinarily helpful, you know. They feel they’re doing something constructive. Something socially worth while,’ said Miss Able glowingly. ‘And once you can get these children, especially the introverted types, to do that, you’ve gone quite a bit of the way.’

Fenella and Paul, who had their backs to the children, nodded gravely. The little boy, having unseated the little girl, was making a brave attempt to bite the calf of her left leg.

‘How are their heads?’ Paul asked solemnly. Miss Able shrugged her shoulders. ‘Taking its course,’ she said. ‘The doctor’s coming again tomorrow.’

Troy gave an involuntary exclamation, and at the same moment the little girl screamed so piercingly that her voice rang out above the singing, which instantly stopped.

‘It’s—perhaps you ought to look,’ said Troy, and Miss Able turned in time to see the little girl attempting strenuously to kick her opponent, who nevertheless maintained his hold on her leg. ‘Let go, you cow,’ screamed the little girl.

‘Patricia! David!’ cried Miss Able firmly and strode towards them. The other children stopped work and listened in silence. The two principals, maintaining their hold on each other, broke into mutual accusations.

‘Now, I wonder,’ said Miss Able brightly, and with an air of interest, ‘just what made you two feel you’d like to have a fight.’ Confused recriminations followed immediately. Miss Able seemed to understand them, and, to Troy’s astonishment, actually jotted down one or two notes in a little book, glancing at her watch as she did so.