‘Tummis is wearing trousers today, is he not? How does he scrub up? Nicely?’

‘Clod, oh Clod, Tummis is not wearing trousers.’

‘No?’

‘What then?’

‘Oh, Clod!’

‘What then, what?’

‘Tummis is lost, Clod.’

‘Tummis is lost, Aunt Pomular?’

‘Yes, dear Clod, I am afraid so.’

‘Then we had better find him, hadn’t we?’

‘Lost in the heaps, Clod, quite lost, in the storm. He went out on his own. They told him he was not to marry Ormily. Moorcus told him, though it wasn’t true. He heard you were in trousers. He went out. Smartly dressed. Singing even, I am told. And the heaps, the heaps, in such a turmoil, pulled him under.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘no and no.’

‘Yes, Clod, I am afraid so.’

‘No.’

‘I am afraid so.’

‘No, no, it isn’t true!’

‘Please, Clod, best leave him now to his close family. They’re going to place his tap – that at least was found, some serving Iremonger tried to help him – they have that and that is something. A comfort.’

‘Oh, Tummis,’ I whispered, ‘what a thing to do.’

‘It is a time for the closest family.’

I saw then through the crowd of adult Iremongers Second Cousin Olish, Tummis’s mother, red-eyed and miserable, holding in her lap a tap, a tap which I knew without looking would be marked H for hot.

‘We’re going to Marble Hall now,’ said Aunt Pomular, ‘we’re going to go with Icktor and Olish, to put Tummis on his shelf.’

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘my poor own Tummis.’

‘Best, Clod, if you make yourself scarce. It would only upset Iktor and Olish all the more to have you there, and in trousers too.’

‘I think I shall quite murder Moorcus.’

‘No you shan’t, Clod, don’t talk like that.’

‘What punishment shall they give him?’

‘Clod,’ said Pomular, ‘what punishment do they ever give him? Besides, it wasn’t entirely Moorcus’s fault that he went out in the storm. Tummis chose to go. He let himself out. It is not Great Chest we are processing towards, it’s Little Cupboard.’

‘Oh Tummis, how could you?’

‘Please, Clod, go home, go home.’

‘Wait!’ I said. ‘One moment! Aunt Olish, Uncle Iktor, please, for a moment, may I hold his tap?’

Aunt Olish held the tap very particularly to her breast; she looked most offended by my question, as well she might, it was a terrible thing to ask. You must always leave a grieving Iremonger alone with the birth object of their deceased, it is particular etiquette, and yet, I must hear it, I had to hear it.

‘Clod!’ screamed Pomular. ‘Whatever do you mean by it!’

‘Please, Aunt, just a moment. I fear it may turn into a person any moment. Or … or otherwise … no, it’s better if it turns … far better.’

‘How dare you!’ cried Uncle Iktor.