CHAPTER IX
THE BACK OF BEYOND
The season was drawing to its close. London lay sweltering under a heat-wave which had robbed the trees in the Park of their fresh June greenness and converted the progress of foot-passengers along its sultry pavements into something which called to mind the mediaeval ordeal of walking over hot ploughshares.
Even the garden at Friars’ Holm, usually a coolly green oasis in the midst of the surrounding streets, seemed as airless as any back court or alley, and Coppertop, who had been romping ever more and more flaggingly with a fox-terrier puppy he had recently acquired, finally gave up the effort and flung himself down, red-faced and panting, on the lawn where his mother and Magda were sitting.
“Isn’t it nearly time for us to go to the seaside, mummie?” he inquired plaintively.
Magda smiled down at the small wistful face.
“How would you like to go to the country instead, Topkins?” she asked. “To a farm where they have pigs and horses and cows, and heaps of cream—”
“And strawberries?” interpolated Coppertop pertinently.
“Oh, of course. Or, no—they’ll be over by the time we get there. But there’ll be raspberries. That’s just as good, isn’t it?”