“Now don’t you talk nonsense, my dear,” said our plump landlady, looking rather red. “Do you think I don’t know better than that?”
“But I am going fishing,” I cried.
“Where?”
“In our wheel-pit.”
“Then there’s someone drownded, and you are going to fish him out.”
“No, no,” I cried. “Will you lend me the hooks?”
“Yes, I’ll lend you the hooks,” she said, getting them out of a drawer.
“We sha’n’t want the old clothes-line,” said Tattsey slowly.
“No, we sha’n’t want the old clothes-line,” said Mrs Stephenson, looking at me curiously. “There, you can have that.”
“I’ll tell you all about it when I come back,” I cried as the knot of clean cord was handed to me; and putting an arm through it and the hooks in my pocket I started off at a run, to find myself face to face with Gentles before I overtook my uncles.