‘But I forbid the jumble sale to be held here,’ said Diva. ‘You’ll be wanting to have a menagerie here next.’

This was amazing luck.

‘No, dear, I couldn’t dream of it,’ said Miss Mapp. ‘I should hate to have tigers and sharks all over the place. Ridiculous!’

‘I shall put up a merry-go-round in quaint Irene’s studio at Taormina,’ said Diva.

‘I doubt if there’s room, dear,’ said Miss Mapp, scoring heavily again, ‘but you might measure. Perfectly legitimate, of course, for if my house may be given over to parties for paupers, you can surely have a merry-go-round in quaint Irene’s and I a jumble sale in yours.’

‘It’s not the same thing,’ said Diva. ‘Providing beautiful tableaux in your garden is quite different from using my panelled hall to sell kettles and coal-scuttles with holes in them.’

‘I dare say I could find a good many holes in the tableaux,’ said Miss Mapp.

Diva could think of no adequate verbal retort to such coruscations, so for answer she merely picked up the tongs, the coal-scuttle, the candlestick and the inkstand, and put them back in the cupboard from which she had just taken them, and left her tenant to sparkle by herself.