The builder told me I needn’t worry about the gentleman being away; lots of gentlemen he was in the habit of working for were away just now; he would superintend the work his own self, and he went off assuring me that he meant to make a _good_ job of it. Then I sent a note to Eileen, asking her kindly to postpone packing for a few days, as I was unavoidably detained in town. The men got on the top of the roof most mornings at about half-past six, and apparently started to play golf up there—judging by the sounds overhead. But they always found it too windy, or too wet, or too something, to stay up there, once they had awakened the whole household. So they invariably went away again till about three-thirty in the afternoon—by which time I suppose the roof was thoroughly well aired, and it was safe for them to sit on it and smoke a pipe or two. It was a fortnight before that roof was finished. Finally they left. And the kitchen staff grew pensive. But the very day after they had cleared their ladders away, I saw a tiny stream oozing out of the sodden grass in the front garden. I knew, even before the builder returned and looked wise, that it was a leak in the pipe leading from the water-main. The pipe-mending squad that arrived next morning was not the same as the roof-mending squad; but the kitchen, being quite impartial, recovered its spirits immediately. These men, evidently most competent, started work in a business-like manner, by removing the two sets of gates, that terminate the semi-circular carriage drive, and blocking up the stable door with them. Next they dug what looked like a network of trenches for giants. They piled up the edging tiles from the beds, and the gravel from the paths, on the front door step; they banked up turf and more gravel under the windows; they uprooted laurels and privet, and the usual array of evergreens that are the only things that will keep alive in a London front garden, and laid them one on top of the other, effectually barricading the tradesmen’s entrance. And when they had made it delightfully impossible for anyone to get either in or out of the house, they one and all came to a halt, and leant wearily on their picks. Just then a brilliant idea seemed to strike one of them whereby he might make himself a still greater nuisance, and he hurriedly turned off the water. They spent the remainder of the day resting on their tools—save when they were gallantly passing in cans and jugs of water (borrowed from my neighbour) to smiling Cook or Abigail at the side door.