The garage was covered with a vast humped growth of ivy, half dead, half alive, which made it twice as big as itself; inside it was tiny, having been built in the days of the model T Ford. Jim thought it would be useful for keeping some of the animals in. Their cars were both too big for it, anyway; but they could be parked on the bridge. The bridge was beginning to sag a little, they noticed. ‘Oh, well, I expect it’ll last our time,’ said Jim.

No doubt the neighbourhood children see the house very much as George and Jim saw it, that first afternoon. Shaggy with ivy and dark and secret-looking, it is just the lair you’d choose for a mean old story-book monster. This is the role George has found himself playing, with increasing violence, since he started to live alone. It releases a part of his nature which he hated to let Jim see. What would Jim say if he could see George waving his arms and roaring like a madman from the window, as Mrs Strunk’s Benny and Mrs Garfein’s Joe dash back and forth across the bridge on a dare? (Jim always got along with them so easily. He would let them pet the skunks and the raccoon and talk to the mynah bird; and yet they never crossed the bridge without being invited.)

Mrs Strunk, who lives opposite, dutifully scolds her children from time to time, telling them to leave him alone, explaining that he’s a professor and has to work so hard. But Mrs Strunk, sweet-natured though she is – grown wearily gentle from toiling around the house at her chores; gently melancholy from regretting her singing days on radio, all given up in order to bear Mr Strunk five boys and two girls – even she can’t refrain from telling George, with a smile of motherly indulgence and just the faintest hint of approval, that Benny (her youngest) now refers to him as ‘That Man’, since George ran Benny clear out of the yard, across the bridge and down the street; he had been beating on the door of the house with a hammer.