t such
pastry as the English cannot make."

Jim laughed.

"And then you will be pretty German again!"

"I do not know." She shook her head. "No, I think I will just be
Swiss. They will not know the difference in Clapham. And I do not
think they will want Germans back. Of course, the Germans will
go--but they will call themselves Swiss, Poles, any old thing. Just
at first, until the English forget: the English always forget, you
know."

"If they forget all they've got to remember over this business--well
then, they deserve to get the Germans back," said Desmond, grimly.
"Always excepting yourself, Miss Polly. You'd be an ornament to
whichever nation you happened to favour at the moment." He finished
the last remnant of his sausage. "That was uncommonly good, thank
you. Now, don't you think we could make a move?"

"I will see if my uncle is safely in. Then I will whistle." She ran
down the ladder, and presently they heard a low call, and going down,
found her awaiting them in the cow-shed.

"He is at his supper, so all is quite safe," she said. "Now you had
better take the third road to the right, and keep straight on. It is
not so direct as the main road, but that would lead you through
several places where the police are very active--and there is a reward
for you, you know!" She laughed, her white teeth flashing in the dim
shed. "Good-bye; and when I come back to Clapham you will come and
take tea at my little shop."

"We'll come and make you the fashion, Miss Polly," said Desmond.
"Thank you a thousand times." They swung off into the dusk.

CHAPTER XVII

LIGHTS OUT

"There was two of every single thing in the Ark," said Geoffrey
firmly. "The man in Church read it out of the Bible."

"Two Teddy-bears?" asked Alison.

"No; Teddies are only toys. There was real bears, though."

"Meat ones?" asked his sister hopefully.

"Yes. And all the other nanimals."

"Who drived 'em in?"

"Ole Noah and Mrs. Noah. Mustn't they have had a time! If you tried
to drive in our turkeys an sheep and cows together there'd be awful
trouble--and Noah had lions and tigers and snakes too."

"Perhaps he had good sheep-dogs," Norah suggested. She was sewing
with Mrs. Hunt under a tree on the lawn, while the children played
with a Noah's Ark on a short-legged table near them.

"He'd need them," Geoffrey said. "But would sheep-dogs be any good at
driving snakes and porklepines, Norah?"

"Noah'