Here indeed was a reward for Lucia’s humility last night. The winners had evidently proclaimed her consummate skill, and was that, too, a reflection on somebody else, only once hitherto named, and that in connection with garden-produce? Tonight Lucia’s hands dripped with aces and kings: she denuded her adversaries of all their trumps, and then led one more for safety’s sake, after which she poured forth a galaxy of winners. Whoever was her partner was in luck, and tonight it was Georgie who had to beg for change for a ten-shilling note and leave the others to adjust their portions. He recked nothing of this financial disaster, for Foljambe was not lost to him. When the party broke up Mrs Wyse begged him to allow her to give him a lift in the Royce, but as this would entail a turning of that majestic car, which would take at least five minutes followed by a long drive for them round the church square and down into the High Street and up again to Porpoise Street, he adventured forth on foot for his walk of thirty yards and arrived without undue fatigue.

Georgie and Lucia started their sketching next morning. Like charity, they began at home, and their first subjects were each other’s houses. They put their campstools side by side, but facing in opposite directions, in the middle of the street halfway between Mallards and Mallards Cottage; and thus, by their having different objects to portray, they avoided any sort of rivalry, and secured each other’s companionship.

‘So good for our drawing,’ said Georgie. ‘We were getting to do nothing but trees and clouds which needn’t be straight.’

‘I’ve got the crooked chimney,’ said Lucia proudly. ‘That one beyond your house. I think I shall put it straight. People might think I had done it crooked by accident. What do you advise?’

‘I think I wouldn’t,’ said he. ‘There’s character in its crookedness. Or you might make it rather more crooked than it is: then there won’t be any doubt… Here comes the Wyses’ car. We shall have to move on to the pavement. Tarsome.’

A loud hoot warned them that that was the safer course, and the car lurched towards them. As it passed, Mr Wyse saw whom he had disturbed, stopped the Royce (which had so much better a right to the road than the artists) and sprang out, hat in hand.

‘A thousand apologies,’ he cried. ‘I had no idea who it was, and for what artistic purpose, occupying the roadway. I am indeed distressed, I would instantly have retreated and gone round the other way had I perceived in time. May I glance? Exquisite! The crooked chimney! Mallards Cottage! The west front of the church!’ He bowed to them all.