It was impossible (since time was so precious, and Georgie so feverishly apprehensive, after this warning, that somebody else would secure Mallards Cottage before him, although the owner was safe in the sand dunes for the present) to walk round the excavations in the street, and like Diva they made an intrepid short cut among gas-pipes and water-mains and braziers and bricks to the other side. A sad splash of mud hurled itself against Georgie’s fawn-coloured trousers as he stepped in a puddle, which was very tarsome, but it was useless to attempt to brush it off till it was dry. As they went up the now familiar street towards Mallards they saw quaint Irene leaning out of the upper window of a small house, trying to take down a board that hung outside it which advertised that this house, too, was to let: the fact of her removing it seemed to indicate that from this moment it was to let no longer. Just as they passed, the board, which was painted in the most amazing colours, slipped from her hand and crashed on to the pavement, narrowly missing Diva who simultaneously popped out of the front door. It broke into splinters at her feet, and she gave a shrill cry of dismay. Then perceiving Irene she called up, ‘No harm done, dear,’ and Irene, in a voice of fury, cried, ‘No harm? My beautiful board’s broken to smithereens. Why didn’t you catch it, silly?’

A snort of infinite contempt was the only proper reply, and Diva trundled swiftly away into the High Street again.

‘But it’s like a game of general post, Georgie,’ said Lucia excitedly, ‘and we’re playing too. Are they all letting their houses to each other? Is that it?’

‘I don’t care whom they’re letting them to,’ said Georgie, ‘so long as I get Mallards Cottage. Look at this tarsome mud on my trousers, and I daren’t try to brush it off. What will Mrs Wyse think? Here’s Porpoise Street anyhow, and there’s Starling Cottage. Elizabethan again.’