The tube train was packed by the time it left central London and I emerged rather the worse for wear. It was raining hard again as I left the train. I was always glad to see my grandfather’s little house, with its neat, pocket handkerchief- sized lawn and its cheerful garden gnomes, but never more so than that evening. A light shone out of the frosted glass panes on the front door as I trudged up the path. I knocked and waited. Eventually the door opened a crack, and a pair of bright boot-button eyes regarded me.

“Whatcher want?” a gravelly voice demanded.

“Granddad, it’s me, Georgie.”

The door was flung open wide and there was my grandfather’s cheerful Cockney face beaming at me. “Well, I’m blowed. Talk about a sight for sore eyes. Come on in, ducks. Come in.”

I stepped into his narrow front hall and he hugged me in spite of my wet overcoat.

“Blimey, you look like a drowned rat,” he said, holding me at arm’s length and grinning at me, his head to one side like a cheerful sparrow. “What on earth are you doing here, out on such a miserable night? ’Ere. You’re not in some kind of trouble again, are you?”

“Not really in trouble,” I said, “but I do need your help.”

“Let me take your coat, love. Come into the kitchen and take a load off your plates of meat.”

“My what?”

“Yer feet, love. Ain’t I taught you no Cockney rhyming slang yet?”

He hung up my coat then ushered me down the hall to his tiny square of kitchen, which was already occupied by one person. “Look what the cat brought in, ’ettie,” he said. It was his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Hettie Huggins, who had been setting her cap at him for ages and finally seemed to have succeeded.

“Pleased to see you again, yer ladyship,” Mrs. Huggins said, dropping me a curtsy, although there wasn’t really room for her ample hips to bend. “I’ve been taking care of your granddad, since he had a nasty bout of bronchitis.”

“Oh, no. Are you all right now?” I turned to look at him.

“Me? Yeah. I’m right as rain, ducks. Couldn’t be better, thanks to ’ettie ’ere. She fed me up like I was a prize chicken. In fact, we were just going to have some of her stew, weren’t we, Hettie? Want to join us?”

“Her ladyship won’t want stew, Albert. It ain’t what posh people are used to.”

“I’d love some, please,” I said. Then added, “Just a little,” in case they didn’t have much. But Mrs. Huggins ladled out a big bowl with barley and beans and lamb shank and they nodded with satisfaction as I wolfed it down.