It was quickly done. Gypsy, who was handy with his hands, ran up a house with weather-boarding, and Ginger painted it green with a red chimney, and cottonwool smoke, because the chimney didn’t lead anywhere, and the cooking was all done on a brazier. They chose Trafalgar Square for their site because it was central and populous, and collared a lot of ’bus-routes. And they could see the fountains playing, and hear St. Martin ringing Oranges and Lemons, and throw crumbs to the sparrows and the lions. They had customers from the very beginning. Their most regular ones were the men from the Meteorological Office and the weather-reporters from the newspapers. The reporters came twice a day, at noon, to find out what the weather had been in the morning, and at evening to find out what it had been in the afternoon. But the theatre crowds kept them busiest. After the shows on soaking nights the people would flock with their dripping umbrellas and splashing galoshes to the little house to ask the weather, and Gypsy would stand outside the door and tell them it was raining and they’d he wise to go home by the Tube. And the grateful throng paid their pennies and rushed for the Bakerloo. But on fine nights Ginger would be there, and she would tell them that the moon was shining and the stars were out, and that nothing is lovelier than the top of a ’bus on a summer night. She told it so nicely that quite often she got two-pence instead of a penny. But she posted it all in the red pillar-box where they kept their money. When it got to a pound it would burst open, but it takes a long time to get to a pound because of the price of Souchong and Best Pork. And quite often a taximan or so would look in at twelve o’clock and ask for a sossidge and a cup of anything ’ot, just as a matter of course, and they always got it, and Gypsy and Ginger were really hurt when they offered to pay for this hospitality. So after that a great many taxi-men turned up regularly, and chestnut-men, and night-watchmen, and tramps, and in this way Gypsy and Ginger made many midnight friends, who are different from all the other sorts of friends there are. For at midnight we are quite ourselves. [Illustration: GYPSY AND GINGER’S FRIENDS 1: THE PAVEMENT ARTIST] Most of the people who would gather in Gypsy and Ginger’s Weatherhouse at midnight had lovely professions--so lovely that they often wondered they had not thought of them themselves when they were discussing Ways and Means. There were, for instance, a Rag-and-Bone Man, and a Punch-and-Judy Man, and a Balloon Woman, and a Lavender Girl. Gypsy would gladly have been either of the two first, and Ginger both of the two last. There were other people too, singers of ballads, and merchants of muffins and groundsel. But the only one whose profession they had considered even for a moment was the Pavement Artist. He was a very good artist and had once thought of being an R.A., but in the end had decided to be a P.A. instead.