Their interest in the business was vivid, for if Miss Mapp succeeded in letting Mallards, she had promised to take Diva’s house, Wasters, for two months at eight guineas a week (the house being much smaller) and Diva would take Irene’s house, Taormina (smaller still) at five guineas a week, and Irene would take a four-roomed labourer’s cottage (unnamed) just outside the town at two guineas a week, and the labourer, who, with his family would be harvesting in August and hop-picking in September, would live in some sort of shanty and pay no rent at all. Thus from top to bottom of this ladder of lessors and lessees they all scored, for they all received more than they paid, and all would enjoy the benefit of a change without the worry and expense of travel and hotels. Each of these ladies would wake in the morning in an unfamiliar room, would sit in unaccustomed chairs, read each other’s books (and possibly letters), look at each other’s pictures, imbibe all the stimulus of new surroundings, without the wrench of leaving Tilling at all. No true Tillingite was ever really happy away from her town; foreigners were very queer untrustworthy people, and if you did not like the food it was impossible to engage another cook for an hotel of which you were not the proprietor. Annually in the summer this sort of ladder of house-letting was set up in Tilling and was justly popular. But it all depended on a successful letting of Mallards, for if Elizabeth Mapp did not let Mallards, she would not take Diva’s Wasters nor Diva Irene’s Taormina.

Diva and Irene therefore hurried to the garden-room where they would hear their fate; Irene forging on ahead with that long masculine stride that easily kept pace with Major Benjy’s, the short-legged Diva with that twinkle of feet that was like the scudding of a thrush over the lawn.

‘Well, Mapp, what luck?’ asked Irene.

Miss Mapp waited till Diva had shot in.

‘I think I shall tease you both,’ said she playfully with her widest smile.

‘Oh, hurry up,’ said Irene. ‘I know perfectly well from your face that you’ve let it. Otherwise it would be all screwed up.’

Miss Mapp, though there was no question about her being the social queen of Tilling, sometimes felt that there were ugly Bolshevistic symptoms in the air, when quaint Irene spoke to her like that. And Irene had a dreadful gift of mimicry, which was a very low weapon, but formidable. It was always wise to be polite to mimics.

‘Patience, a little patience, dear,’ said Miss Mapp soothingly. ‘If you know I’ve let it, why wait?’

‘Because I should like a cocktail,’ said Irene. ‘If you’ll just send for one, you can go on teasing.’