ve that partnership now?" said Luke.

Diggle glanced at his watch.

"Applications of this kind," he said, "should be made in office hours.
It is now after six. Good evening, Mr. Sharper."

Mechanically, automatically, not knowing what he did, Luke prepared
for his ride home to Jawbones. Then he became aware that he was
pushing something along on the pavement. What was it? It was a
bicycle. He pushed it into a policeman. The policeman asked him to
take it into the road.

He walked along in the road now, still wheeling his bicycle, and
looking all around him.

What a lot of shops seemed to be selling brooms. Yes, and soap. Long
bars of yellow soap. There were big advertisements on the boardings.
He read them aloud: "WASHO. WORKS BY ITSELF."

And again: "PINGO FOR THE PAINT. A PENNY PACKET OF PINGO DOES THE
TRICK." There was a picture of a beautiful lady using Pingo, her face
expressing rapture.

What did it all mean?

He did not know. But it meant that spring was coming. Spring, with its
daffodils, its pretty little birds and all the other things.

He mounted and rode away. A meaningless string of words seemed to
circle round and round in his brain.

"Jona. Washo. Crikey."

At dinner that night, Mabel said: "We shall begin our spring-cleaning
to-morrow. I intend that it shall be done particularly thoroughly this
year. It will take some weeks and will probably cause you
inconvenience. But you like suffering, don't you?"

"Spring," said Luke, thoughtfully. "Not all daffodils. No."

3

A little later Mr. Alfred Jingle, solicitor, talking to his friend the
artist, may be permitted to throw some light on events.

"Saw Sharper yesterday. Don't like it. Awful. Went to his house. What?
Yes, looking for lunch. Brass knob on the front door blazing fit to
blind you. No curtains at any of the windows. Sound like a carpet
being beaten from the garden at the back. Sharper himself leaning out
of upstairs window. Face ashen grey. Ears twitching. 'Don't come in,'
he calls out, 'I'll come down. Lunch in Dilborough.'

"Terrific noise of Sharper falling downstairs. Out he comes, rubbing
knee. Hat bashed in.

"'Had a little accident,' he says. 'They took out the stair rods.
Carpet loose. We'll go in by train. Wouldn't ask you to lunch here.
Had dinner in the bath-room last night. Mabel's got her head in a
duster.'

"I asked him what was the matter. And if he spent the entire day
leaning out of that window.

"'Yes,