There was telephoning to and fro, and the local shops were kept in attendance on the instruments, town establishments were harried and badgered by the same means of communication. I looked through the stock room, and at first decided that no great additions were necessary; if the worst came to the worst, The Croft could stand a siege of reasonable length, and the kitchen gardens would furnish supplies. But the shop-people at Sidcup alarmed me, and another housekeeper I met there induced me to believe I was failing to take wise precautions. The shop folk spoke of the immense orders they were receiving from customers who had the fear that either prices would go up with a tremendous jump, or that articles of food might be unobtainable; my friend assured me, with gleeful confidence, that whatever happened to other households in the neighbourhood, her's, at any rate, was safe.
"They made me pay cash for everything, Miss Weston," she went on, "but that was only reasonable. Paper money is not of much use at times like this. What I'm anxious about is the number of hands that will be thrown out of work. I told my girls, only to-day, they'll all be starving before the month is up."
"That ought to have pleased them."
"We've got to face the facts," she declared, earnestly. "There's not the slightest use in burying our heads in the sand. Everyone will be getting rid of servants, and what the poor souls are to do doesn't bear thinking of. I suppose your people are like the rest, talking of cutting down expenses."
"Hints. Nothing more!"
"Fortunately," she said, "I have been able to put by, just as you, no doubt, have managed to do. Eh?"
"I didn't say anything."
"And my notion is that when it becomes too hot, I shall rush off to a quiet place I've got my eye on in Wales where the Germans won't trouble to come, and if they do, all my money will be safely buried in the flower garden, and I shall pretend I'm too silly to understand anything that's said to me."
"You'll find that easy enough."