‘Thank you, Briggs, I will try. But you do not mind, do you?’

‘I mind the candles and gas lamps, I mind the carpets and brooms and shoeblacks, I mind things, things I mind. Not people. People under me, surely. But never do I mind them that are above me, not for me to mind them above, not done, not done at all ever. Have you seen your Aunt Rosamud’s door handle?’

‘No, I am sorry, Briggs, I have not.’

‘It is a great distress.’

‘Briggs?’ I asked. ‘Have you seen Cousin Moorcus?’

‘Not long past he was on your landing, and since he has come into contact with Master Tummis.’

‘Oh, poor Tummis. Where are they now?’

‘I couldn’t say, but you might be wise not to enter Marble Hall, or the refectory, you might not approach the morning room, or even yet any of the downstairs parlours. I should, in a general way, keep yourself more silent. I heard someone walking up here, footsteps above me, that was why I came up. Master Moorcus is very certainly looking out for you, Master Clod. Whilst others seek your aunt’s door handle, he looks for you in the larger cupboards, under stairs. I should, in a general way, move more quietly.’

‘Thank you, Briggs, thanks awfully.’

‘I never said a word,’ said Briggs as he left.

The View From Our Windows

I moved along, I kept in unpopular places, listing rooms with bubbled or peeling wallpaper. In a former barber’s shop, bolted to the third floor, originally from Peckham Rye, a room that I had not been in for several months, and where I thought I should be quite safe from Moorcus, I stood before a window thick with grime, but with a small crack in it, through which the outside whistled in, and, when I put my eye to the slight hole, there was a small view to be had of the outside of what lay beyond our home, of the heaplands in all their majesty. The heaps were calm that day and peaceful, it should have been a perfect day for sorting had not the loss of Aunt’s door handle kept everyone inside.