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always longing to settle eventually in the countryside nearby. This was their chance.
    Diana sighed, and decided to creep downstairs to warm some milk. It might make her sleep. Experience told her that nothing short of clashing cymbals would stir Peter from his rest, but nevertheless, she went on tiptoe from the room and down the stairs. The moonlight was so bright that there was no need to switch on lights until she entered the kitchen.
    The cat gave a welcoming chirrup, stretched luxuriously, and descended from its bed on the kitchen chair near the stove. It watched Diana expectantly as she poured milk into a saucepan. A little snack in the middle of the night never came amiss.
    Diana shared the milk between her mug and the cat's saucer, and stood warming her hands as she sipped.
    'How'd you like to live in the country, puss?' asked Diana, watching the pink tongue at work. But the cat, strangely enough, never answered questions, and Diana carried her mug and her problems back to bed.

    'Go ahead,' she said next morning, when Peter awoke.
    'Go ahead where?'
    'With the house.'
    'The Fairacre one?'
    'What else?' said Diana, slightly nettled. Peter never came to full consciousness until after breakfast. This morning he seemed more comatose than usual.
    'You're sure?'
    'No, I'm not, but I think we could make something of it, and if we're going to move, then now's the right time.'
    There was silence for a time, and then Diana heard humming from the other bed, proving that her husband was feeling contented. It was difficult to recognise the tune. It might have been 'Onward Christian Soldiers', 'Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes' roughly transposed for a tuneless baritone, or possibly the marching music from 'Dr Zhivago'. Peter's repertoire was limited, but gave him a great deal of private pleasure, and Diana a keen appreciation of variations on several themes.
    'Better get up, then,' said Peter, throwing aside the bedclothes. 'I'll get down to Masters and Jones as soon as they open.'
    Still humming—the Dr Zhivago motif coming through strongly now—he made his way to the bathroom.

    Masters and Jones estate agents' office presented a fine Georgian front, all red brick and white-painted sash windows, to Caxley High Street. It looked what it was, a long-established prosperous family business which had served Caxley and its neighbourhood well for four generations. William Masters had founded the firm in the year of the Great Exhibition of 1861, and three of his descendants were still active in the firm. Clough Jones, a foreigner from Pontypool, joined the firm in 1920, and so was a comparative newcomer to Caxley. His beautiful tenor voice was soon taking the lead in Caxley's Operatic Society and he was reckoned to be 'a very steady sort of chap'. Some added: 'For a Welshman', in the year or two after Clough's arrival, but this proviso was soon dropped-proof that he had shown his worth.
    Peter had taught two of the Masters' boys and Clough's only son Ellis. It was the younger of the Masters' boys, now a man of twenty-eight, who welcomed Peter to the office and set a chair for him on the other side of the desk.
    The interior of the house was disappointing. The large square rooms on each side of the hall had been divided into four, with partitions of flimsy wood topped with reeded glass. Occasionally one would catch sight of a head, curiously distorted, in the next compartment, elongated like a giraffe-woman from Africa, or bulging sideways like a squashed Christmas pudding, according to the angle of the glass through which it was visible.
    The floors were covered with linoleum of a pattern purporting to be wood blocks. As these were of such unlikely colours as pale blue, orange and pink, the effect was unconvincing, and to Peter, eyeing it distastefully, thoroughly shocking.
    'Very nice to see you, sir,' said young Masters deferentially. It seemed only yesterday that he was waiting outside the detention room door under Mr Hales' stern