Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/47

48 "It's much too big," said Lucilla, but yielding.

"Not for P.G.'s," said Jane.

"We couldn't furnish it."

"Hire purchase," Jane reminded her. "I saw that in the paper too. You pay out of your income so that it doesn't cost you anything. No, I don't exactly see how—but the it is. We can't expect to understand everything."

"We should want an army of gardeners."

"Men who've fought in the war and got pensions too small. They can come and garden and share the profits."

"But when the board distinctly says that the house isn't to let . . ."

"Bother the board!" said Jane. "I expect we shall find it doesn't know its own wooden mind."

But apparently it did. Messrs. Tutch and Co., represented by a small inky boy who ate something secret out of a paper-bag throughout the interview, held out no hopes. The house was not to let. Nothing would induce the owner to let it. Yes, it had been let, but the party that had had it did something they oughtn't—blest if he knew what—and the old gent it belonged to said no more lets for him.

"So he went and disfigured of our board, and pays our firm so much a year to let the board stay there looking silly. No, miss, we ain't got no other houses to let—what do you think? Could sell you one—a nice semi with bay windows, five rooms and scullery. No bath. Twelve hundred. Like to go over it?"

"Not to-day, thank you,"said Jane, quailing, "but we'd like to go over the big house. Couldn't we do that? What is the house called?"

"Cedar Court. No, that you couldn't. . . ."

"Not even if . . ." said Jane, her fingers busy with the silver meshes of her bag—one of the Guardian's latest gifts.

"Not if it was a hundred thousand down," said the boy, filling his mouth. "You see," he added with frank regret, "we ain't got the keys at the office."

"Who has got the keys?"