picion by pretending
her cellar was next to empty. She had been equally severe on any who
might happen to be hoarding food, in case transport was disarranged and
supplies fell short, and with a sudden flare of authentic intuition,
Diva's mind blazed with the conjecture that Elizabeth was hoarding food
as well.

Luck ever attends the bold and constructive thinker: the apple, for
instance, fell from the tree precisely when Newton's mind was groping
after the law of gravity, and as Diva stepped into her grocer's to begin
her morning's shopping (for she had been occupied with roses ever since
breakfast) the attendant was at the telephone at the back of the shop.
He spoke in a lucid telephone-voice.

"We've only two of the big tins of corned beef," he said; and there was
a pause, during which, to a psychic, Diva's ears might have seemed to
grow as pointed with attention as a satyr's. But she could only hear
little hollow quacks from the other end.

"Tongue as well. Very good. I'll send them up at once," he added, and
came forward into the shop.

"Good morning," said Diva. Her voice was tremulous with anxiety and
investigation. "Got any big tins of corned beef? The ones that contain
six pounds."

"Very sorry, ma'am. We've only got two, and they've just been ordered."

"A small pot of ginger then, please," said Diva recklessly. "Will you
send it round immediately?"

"Yes, ma'am. The boy's just going out."

That was luck. Diva hurried into the street, and was absorbed by the
headlines of the news outside the stationer's. This was a favourite
place for observation, for you appeared to be quite taken up by the
topics of the day, and kept an oblique eye on the true object of your
scrutiny.... She had not got to wait long, for almost immediately the
grocer's boy came out of the shop with a heavy basket on his arm,
delivered the small pot of ginger at her own door, and proceeded along
the street. He was, unfortunately, a popular and a conversational youth,
who had a great deal to say to his friends, and the period of waiting to
see if he would turn up the steep street that led to Miss Mapp's house
was very protracted. At the corner he deliberately put down the basket
altogether and lit a cigarette, and never had Diva so acutely deplored
the spread of the tobacco-habit among the juvenile population.

Having refreshed himself he turned up the steep street.

He passed the fishmonger's and the fruiterer's; he did not take th