The Chief Official looked at me thoughtfully for half a moment, and then retired in silence—to have the door-mat he had just vacated immediately monopolised by the builder, who had been waiting respectfully in the background. (I say background, because I can’t think of any other comprehensive term that signifies a couple of narrow, wobbly, muddy planks, laid across a well-filled moat; _ground_ there was none.) He congratulated me on having been let off by the Official so easily, and cited instances of owners of property he knew who had been compelled to lay miles of fresh pipes (or it seemed to be miles, judging by the time he took to describe it) as the result of inattention to Official Rules and Regulations regarding Stop-cocks. But he intimated that he had put in a good word for me, and besought them to deal leniently with me, “Knowing, ma’am, how generous you and the gentleman always are.” I didn’t respond to the hint. Just at this point he made an opportunity to suggest that in view of the shocking workmanship revealed in the pipes outside, it would certainly be wise of me to have the pipes overhauled all through the house, because one could never tell when one might burst without a moment’s notice, and a flood of water ruin everything. It would only necessitate his taking up the floors in the dining-room and the study and the hall and the kitchens and the greenhouse next the house, and possibly a landing and bath-room and dressing-room upstairs. As it was, the pipes might be leaking terribly under the ground-floors already, disseminating damp and disease throughout the house (though the servants and I were particularly healthy at the time). There was a terrible amount of illness about, he continued; next door to him a little boy had whooping-cough, and the local undertaker, a friend of his, had just told him trade had never been better; although they were working day and night they could hardly manage to execute all the orders. Of course, all this was primarily due to damp. Even as he spoke he pressed his ample foot so heavily on the hall floor, that but for a stout linoleum I feel sure he would have gone through; then he said it looked to him very much as though dry rot had set in there already, and it would probably be necessary to re-floor the hall. In vain I reminded him that it had rained without cessation—so far as my distraught memory served me—for the past eighteen months, hence _dry_ rot would seem little short of a miracle. But he only looked at me in that pitying way builders do when any feminine owner of property ventures a remark; and he next asked if I had noticed signs of damp anywhere in the upstairs room? After all, the upstairs pipes might be leaking too.