With many thanks,

Ricky

P.S. I do hope your other visitor has settled in nicely.

He decided to go out and post it. He had arrived only last evening in the village and had yet to explore it properly.

There wasn’t a great deal to explore. The main street ran along the front and steep little cobbled lanes led off it through ranks of cottages of which the one on the corner, next door to the Ferrants’, turned out to be the local police station. The one shop there was, Mercer’s Drapery and General Suppliers, combined the functions of post office, grocery, hardware, clothing, stationery, and toy shops. Outside hung ranks of duffel coats, pea jackets, oilskins and sweaters, all strung above secretive windows beyond which one could make out further offerings set out in a dark interior. Ricky was filled with an urge to buy. He turned in at the door and sustained a sharp jab below the ribs.

He swung round to find himself face to face with a wild luxuriance of hair, dark spectacles, a floral shirt, beads and fringes.

“Yow!” said Ricky and clapped a hand to his waist. “What’s that for?”

A voice behind the hair said something indistinguishable. A gesture was made, indicating a box slung from the shoulder, a box of a kind very familiar to Ricky.

“I was turning round, wasn’t I,” the voice mumbled.

“OK,” said Ricky. “No bones broken. I hope.”

“Hurr,” said the voice, laughing dismally.

Its owner lurched past Ricky and slouched off down the street, the paint box swinging from his shoulder.

“Very careless, that was,” said Mr. Mercer, the solitary shopman, emerging from the shadows. “I don’t care for that type of behavior. Can I interest you in anything?”

Ricky, though still in pain, could be interested in a dark blue polo-necked sweater that carried a label “Hand-knitted locally. Very special offer.”