He shook his head.
“Telephone!” he cried, again.
“Er—chi?” she enquired. “Chi, Tony?”
“Doan know!” he cried, in distress. “Doan know! Missa Wata coma quick!”
She slipped into a rain-coat and hurried out to the little shop on the corner, where at the back, among barrels and boxes and crates and a pungent smell of oranges, was Tony’s telephone. She picked up the receiver.
“Ye-hes?” she enquired, in her most cultivated voice.
“Number please!” said the operator.
“I don’t want a number,” Miss Waters explained. “Someone called me!”
“Your party’s hung up!” said the operator.
Miss Waters didn’t comprehend, but Tony’s wife, an opulent young woman nursing a big baby, exclaimed: