pected, that Sunday after church, but such occasions are never for confidences, nor is it possible, desirable, after a service, to peel right down to the last and most revealing skin of that doubtful onion-truth. So the friends chose to wait. It was not until several days later that Mrs Jolley had the opportunity for looking in. If to _look in__ suggests a casualness that one does not associate with such a delicate operation as the tidying-up of truth, it must be remembered that ladies of refinement go scavenging rather in the manner of crabs-sideways. So Mrs Jolley was wearing her second-best. She was carrying, only carrying her gloves, because there was something accidental about her being there at all. Nor was she made up-not that Mrs Jolley ever made up to the extent of acquiring the patent-leather look-but she had at least licked the end of a lipstick, ice-cream-wise, before setting out. There she was, then. Mrs Flack professed to be surprised. "I only looked in," Mrs Jolley apologized, but smiled. Mrs Flack closed the kitchen door, and stood across it, in the hall. Mrs Jolley realized there was some reason for doing so. "Well, now," said Mrs Flack, so dry. Mrs Jolley smiled, some for friendship, but more for what she did not know was happening beyond the kitchen door. "Did you have your tea, then?" she had to ask, in the name of conversation. "You know I never take nothing substantial of an evening," replied the offended Mrs Flack. "My stomach would create on retiring. But I have, I must admit, just finished a weak cup." "I am sorry if I have come inconvenient." Mrs Jolley smiled. "You have a visit. A relative, perhaps." "That is nothing," protested Mrs Flack, walking her friend towards the lounge. "A young man has come, who sometimes looks in, and I will give him a bite of tea. Young people are casual about their insides." "I dare say you have known him since he was a kiddy," Mrs Jolley assisted. "That is correct. Since a kiddy," Mrs Flack replied. "As a matter of fact, he is my nephew." By this time they were in the lounge, seated on the _petty point__, beside the window. Today Mrs Jolley failed to notice the two plaster pixies, normally inescapable, and of which their owner was so very proud. "Ah," said Mrs Jolley, climbing stairs, as it were, scuttling down the corridors of memory at such a pace, her words could only issue breathless. "A nephew," she said. "I understood, Mrs Flack, seeing how you told, that you was quite without encumbrances." Then Mrs Flack sat and looked, calmly enough, out of her yellow face, only for rather a long time. "It must have escaped my mind," she said at last, with equanimity. "It is liable to happen to anyone. Although a nephew," she said, "who is no closer than a nice piece of steak makes him, cannot strickly be called an encumbrance. As I see it, anyway." Mrs Jolley sympathized. "It is only a kindness that I sometimes do." Mrs Flack set the seal. "Of course, you are very kind," Mrs Jolley admitted. Then they sat, and waited for the furniture to give the cue. It was Mrs Jolley, finally, who had to ask, "Did you hear any more about, well, You-Know-Who?" Mrs Flack closed her eyes. Mrs Jolley shivered for fear she had broken an important rule. Mrs Flack began to move her head, from side to side, like a pendulum. Mrs Jolley was reassured. Inwardly, she crouched before the tripod. "Nothing that you could call Somethink," the pythoness replied. "But the truth will always out." "People must always pay," chanted Mrs Jolley. She herself was, of course, an adept, though there were some who would not always recognize it. "People must pay," repeated Mrs Flack. And knocked over a little ash-tray, which probably no one had ever used, with a transfer of Windsor Castle on it. Windsor Castle broke in half. Mrs Flack would have liked to blame somebody, but was unable to. Mrs Jolley sucked her teeth, and helped with the pieces. "It always happens so quick," she said, "and yet, you know it's going to." "That reminds me," said Mrs Flack. "A dream. I had a dream, Mrs lolley, and your late hubby featured in it." Mrs Jolley was stunned by the roses on the wall-to-wall. "Fancy now! Why should you?" she said. "Whatever put it into your head?" "That is beside the point," said Mrs Flack. "They were carrying out your late hubby on the stretcher. See? I was, it seems-if you will excuse me, Mrs Jolley-you." Mrs Flack had turned pink, but Mrs Jolley grew quite pale. "What do you know!" the latter said. "What a lot of nonsense a person dreams!" "I said: 'Good-bye, Mr Jolley,' I said," said Mrs Flack. Mrs Jolley pleated her lips. "He said to me: 'Kiss me, won't you'-then he mentions some name which I forget; 'Tiddles,' was it? — 'kiss me before I set out on me Last Journey.' I-or you-replied: 'I will do it voluntary for the first and last time.' He said: 'Who killed with a kiss?' Then they carried him out." "He was dead before they put him on the stretcher! Died in his chair! Just as I handed him his cup of tea." "But in the dream. See?" "What a lot of rot! Killing with a kiss!" Mrs Flack, who might have been enjoying a view from a mountain, it was so exhilarating, said, "Who will ever decide who has killed who? Men and women are hardly responsible for their actions. We had an example only last week in Montebello Avenue." Mrs Jolley had grown emotional. "And did you kiss him?" she asked. "I don't remember," Mrs Flack replied, and smoothed her skirt. Mrs Jolley's nose sounded soggily through the room. "Fancy," she said, "us talking like this, and that nephew of yours only in the kitchen." Or not even. For just then the door opened, and no bones about it, there stood a young fellow. It appeared to Mrs Jolley that his exceptionally fine proportions were not concealed by sweatshirt and jeans; he was obviously not used to clothes. Nor was Mrs Jolley to sculpture. She began to sniff, and look at other things. "Oh," exclaimed Mrs Flack, turning her head, supple now that she had strengthened her position. "How was the steak?" The young man opened his mouth. If his gums had run to teeth, he would have gone through the pantomime of sucking them to expel the shreds. Instead, he merely ejaculated: "Tough!" — from between two remaining fangs. Although classical of body, it had to be admitted the young man's head was a disappointment: skin-dry and scabby, wherever it was not drawn too tight and shiny, giving an impression of postage stamps; eyelashes-might have been singed right off; hair-a red stubble, but red. Nor did words come out of his mouth except with ugly difficulty. "Ahlbeseeinyer!" the young fellow announced. "Whereyergoin?" asked Mrs Flack, who had apparently succeeded in mastering his language. "Muckinaround." Then Mrs Flack's brick residence shuddered as the nephew withdrew from it. Mrs Jolley appeared thoughtful. "A sister's, or a brother's child?" she asked. Mrs Flack was thoughtful too, and might have wished to remain so. "Oh," she murmured. "A sister's child. A sister's." But only eventually. "I did not catch his name." "Blue is what he answers to." Mrs Jolley decided she would not penetrate any farther, and was soon startled enough from the distance at which she had chosen to halt. "I will tell you somethink of interest," Mrs Flack suddenly said, and had drawn herself right together, into a needle-point. "Blue," she said, "works-rather, I should say, he is _in charge of__ the plating-shop-good money, too-at Rosetree's factory at Barranugli." "Rosetree's factory?" "Don't be silly!" said Mrs Flack. "Where the Jew works, that Mr Godbold's wife is conducting herself so peculiar with." "You don't say!" "I do. "What is more," Mrs Flack added, "Blue has eyes which will see what I want to know. I will make no claims for his brains. He was never ever a clever boy, but always most biddable. Blue will act upon an idea, if you know what I mean, Mrs Jolley, and no harm done, of course, if it is the right idea, and the right person in control." Mrs Jolley threw up her head, and laughed, but in such a way that Mrs Flack wondered whether her friend realized what a respectable hand her superior held. "I will tell you something too," Mrs Jolley began. "My lady is in the habit of meeting the Jew. Under an old tree. In the orchard. There now!" she said. And trembled, not from fear. Principle prevented Mrs Flack receiving reports from others with anything but reserve. So, when she had wet her lips, she merely offered, "What is it that gets into people?" But, if her voice suggested old shammy, her mind was already trying out its steel. Mrs Jolley had purpled over. "Mrs Flack," she gurgled in a thick stream, "it is not right the way some people carry on. And what is to be done?" "What is to be done?" Mrs Flack recoiled. "I am not the one, Mrs Jolley, to ask. Am I the constable? Am I the Government, or the Shire Council? Clergymen are in a position to act, but seldom do. We are no more than two ladies of decent feeling. I would not dream of dirtying my hands. Besides, a person might get burnt. No, Mrs Jolley. It does not pay to hurry cooking. You must let it simmer, and give it a stir, like, to keep it nice. Then, when it is ready, you can be sure someone will be only too glad to step in and eat it up." But Mrs Jolley was sputtering. "But her! Her! Under a tree! The squintiest thing I ever laid eyes on! And cracked, into the bargain!" Mrs Flack could only respect the passion which inspired her friend's hate. "I would of gone long ago, if I mightn't of been doing her a service. Mrs Flack, have you ever laid in bed, and listened for a house to crumble, and if you was to crumble with it, what odds, let it crash?" "You would never catch me under any roof in such a poor state of repair." "If circumstances had ordered it," Mrs Jolley snapped. "Circumstances is not as cranky as some people like to think," Mrs Flack replied. "You could be as snug as Jackie, under the blue eiderdown, in my second room, if you was not so stubborn." Mrs Jolley was pricked. Her skin subsided. "I still sort of hesitate," she simpered between looser teeth. "Xanadu will crumble without you ever give it a shove. Dust to dust, as they say." "Oh, will it though? Will it though? Will I see the neat brick homes, with sewerage, gutters, and own telephone?" Mrs Jolley was entranced. "Will I see an end to all madness, and people talking as if it was stuff out of dreams? Nobody should ever be allowed to give way to madness, but of course they will never want to in the brick homes. It is in those big old houses that the thoughts of idle people still wander around loose. I remember when I would come downstairs to turn out the rooms. I can remember the loose thoughts and the fruit-peelings. And Them, laying upstairs, in Irish linen. Dreaming."