It rained hard all night, and by next morning we had quite a spacious lake in the front garden. The squad returned to the post of duty, and once more disposed themselves like guardian angels on its banks. When, in sheer exasperation, I asked them how long they were going to leave things like that, and the house without a drop of water, the foreman replied, politely but non-committally, that he couldn’t exactly say, but the Boss was coming round to see me shortly. The builder arrived later, to inform me that this was a most serious leak; he didn’t know when he had seen one precisely like it before. Of course, it was partly due to the pipe; how any man could have called himself a plumber, and put in such a pipe as _that_!—well, words failed him! He himself was not a man to boast of his own doings, but he didn’t mind telling me that I could take up any piece of ground I liked, where he had laid a pipe, and see the sort _he_ put underground. Then it transpired that the leakage was of such a character that he dare not proceed an inch farther with it without calling in the water company’s officials. Did I authorise him to do so? Of course they would charge special fees for “opening up the ground.” I wondered where else they would find any to “open up” on my premises, seeing that by this time the whole estate was a gaping void! As I saw the turncock and a variety of other gentlemen with gold letters embroidered on their collars, propping themselves up against my holly hedge, I just said, “Oh, yes; do anything you please.” And they did. Some of the embroidered ones then proceeded to dig up the whole pavement, and right out into the middle of the road (the leak being inside the garden, close beside my front door!). It does not take long to write about it, but I don’t want to mislead you into thinking there was any feverish haste about their methods. Oh, no! theirs was the calm un-hurrying work of the true artist; and the builder’s squad stood round admiringly, most careful not to interfere. Once again the whole lot came to a standstill, and rested on any available implement; and they now made a goodly crowd (I had no idea there were so many non-khaki men still loose), which was further supplemented by a policeman, one or two aged men who had discarded the workhouse for the more leisurely life that modern business offers, and a variety of languid young ladies who had been sent out on urgent errands from sundry local shops.