‘No, you cannot. There’s only a few bottles left, and with Mr. Tully coming――’ Mrs. Pringle subsided into murmurs as she seized the egg-beater. Pud reported three bottles on the ice and wandered out to the porch again. From there, across a picket fence, he was confronted by the rear end of the Daleys’ house. The Daleys’ place was very much like the Pringles’. The house was modest in size, white with green shutters, and placed so close to Arundel Street that fully half of the deep lot was vacant save for a stable set close to the back line. Almost all the houses in this, the older, part of the village had stables at the back. Few of them were used as such nowadays, though. Some had become garages, others, like the Pringles,’ were only storehouses for worn-out things. But the Daleys’ stable had found a third use. Across the front, above the wide-open carriage-room doorway, ran a large sign of black letters on a white ground: JOHN H. DALEY CARPENTER & CONTRACTOR Through the doorway Pud could see the end of a long bench, the smooth planks lying on hanging racks above, the carpet of sweet-smelling shavings underfoot. He could also see a stocky boy of his own age leaning against an end of the bench and whittling something from a piece of soft pine. The boy was hatless, and a shaft of sunlight brought out the copper tones of his tousled hair. Pud watched rather enviously. Tim Daley’s knife was so keen that it went into the wood as if the latter was no more than cheese. Tim could do almost anything with a knife, and Pud couldn’t do much more than cut himself. Tim looked up from his occupation and straight across to the Pringles’ back porch. The eyes of the boys met full for an instant. Then Pud swiftly moved his gaze to the sky and Tim returned his to his knife. Then Tim began to whistle softly. Pud heard the tune and frowned. He wanted very much to squirm through the hole in the fence where the two pickets were broken and spend the rest of the time before dinner over there with Tim. And he would if only Tim would speak first. But Tim went on whistling and whittling and Pud’s dissatisfaction with life increased.