It was a financial sacrifice, but it was the only way, and when they came to the shop Bealby secured a very nice collar indeed, high with pointed turn-down corners, so that it cut his neck all round, jabbed him under the chin and gave him a proud upcast carriage of the head that led to his treading upon and very completely destroying a stray plate while preparing lunch. But it was more of a man’s collar, he felt, than anything he had ever worn before. And it cost sixpence halfpenny, six dee and a half. (I should have mentioned that while washing up the breakfast things he had already broken the handle off one of the breakfast cups. Both these accidents deepened the cloud upon his day.) And then there was the trouble of William. William having meditated upon the differences between them for a day had now invented an activity. As Bealby sat beside him behind the white horse he was suddenly and frightfully pinched. _Gee!_ One wanted to yelp. “Choc’late,” said William through his teeth and very very savagely. “_Now_ then.” After William had done that twice Bealby preferred to walk beside the caravan. Thereupon William whipped up the white horse and broke records and made all the crockery sing together and forced the pace until he was spoken to by Mrs. Bowles.... It was upon a Bealby thus depressed and worried that the rumour of impending “men-folk” came. It began after the party had stopped for letters at a village post office; there were not only letters but a telegram, that Mrs. Bowles read with her spats far apart and her head on one side. “Ye’d like to know about it,” she said waggishly to Miss Philips, “and you just shan’t.” She then went into her letters. “You’ve got some news,” said Mrs. Geedge. “I have that,” said Mrs. Bowles, and not a word more could they get from her.... “I’ll keep my news no longer,” said Mrs. Bowles, lighting her cigarette after lunch as Bealby hovered about clearing away the banana skins and suchlike vestiges of dessert. “To-morrow night as ever is, if so be we get to Winthorpe-Sutbury, there’ll be Men among us.” “But Tom’s not coming,” said Mrs. Geedge. “He asked Tim to tell me to tell you.” “And you’ve kept it these two hours, Judy.” “For your own good and peace of mind. But now the murther’s out. Come they will, your Man and my Man, pretending to a pity because they can’t do without us. But like the self-indulgent monsters they are, they must needs stop at some grand hotel, Redlake he calls it, the Royal, on the hill above Winthorpe-Sutbury. The Royal! The very name describes it. Can’t you see the lounge, girls, with its white cane chairs? And saddlebacks! No other hotel it seems is good enough for them, and we if you please are asked to go in and have—what does the man call it—the ‘comforts of decency’—and let the caravan rest for a bit.” “Tim promised me I should run wild as long as I chose,” said Mrs. Geedge, looking anything but wild.