aged to a large assortment of the
population round here or else she's very careless at identification. Of
course it may be the same body coming round again and again in a swirl; I
hadn't thought of that."

"But we ought to go out and do rescue work, oughtn't we?" said Latimer,
with the instinct of a Parliamentary candidate for getting into the local
limelight.

"We can't," said Vera decidedly, "we haven't any boats and we're cut off
by a raging torrent from any human habitation. My aunt particularly
hoped you would keep to your room and not add to the confusion, but she
thought it would be so kind of you if you would take in Hartlepool's
Wonder, the gamecock, you know, for the night. You see, there are eight
other gamecocks, and they fight like furies if they get together, so
we're putting one in each bedroom. The fowl-houses are all flooded out,
you know. And then I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind taking in this
wee piggie; he's rather a little love, but he has a vile temper. He gets
that from his mother--not that I like to say things against her when
she's lying dead and drowned in her stye, poor thing. What he really
wants is a man's firm hand to keep him in order. I'd try and grapple
with him myself, only I've got my chow in my room, you know, and he goes
for pigs wherever he finds them."

"Couldn't the pig go in the bathroom?" asked Latimer faintly, wishing
that he had taken up as determined a stand on the subject of bedroom
swine as the chow had.

"The bathroom?" Vera laughed shrilly. "It'll be full of Boy Scouts till
morning if the hot water holds out."

"Boy Scouts?"

"Yes, thirty of them came to rescue us while the water was only waist-
high; then it rose another three feet or so and we had to rescue them.
We're giving them hot baths in batches and drying their clothes in the
hot-air cupboard, but, of course, drenched clothes don't dry in a minute,
and the corridor and staircase are beginning to look like a bit of coast
scenery by Tuke. Two of the boys are wearing your Melton overcoat; I
hope you don't mind."

"It's a new overcoat," said Latimer, with every indication of minding
dreadfully.

"You'll take every care of Hartlepool's Wonder, won't you?" said Vera.
"His mother took three firsts at Birmingham, and he was second in the
cockerel class last year at Gloucester. He'll probably roost on the rail
at the bottom of your bed. I wonder if he'd feel more at home if some of
his wives wer