“Yaas,” said the servant.
“Christian name?” asked Tommy, his pencil poised.
“Missus’s? Eleanor Jane.”
“Eleanor,” spelt Tommy. “Any sons or daughters over twenty-one?”
“Naow.”
“Thank you.” Tommy closed the notebook with a brisk snap. “Good morning.”
The servant volunteered her first remark:
“I thought perhaps as you’d come about the gas,” she observed cryptically, and shut the door.
Tommy rejoined his accomplice.
“You see, Tuppence,” he observed. “Child’s play to the masculine mind.”