'Come back, you, said Aunt Ada, raising her voice. 'I know you perfectly. You're Thomas. Red-haired you used to be. Carrots, that's the colour your hair was. Come back. I'll talk to you. I don't want the woman. No good her pretending she's your wife. I know better. Shouldn't bring that type of woman in here. Come and sit down here in this chair and tell me about your dear mother. You go away,' added Aunt Ada as a kind of postscript, waving her hand towards Tuppence who was hesitating in the doorway.

Tuppence retired immediately.

'Quite in one of her moods today,' said Miss Packard, unruffled, as they went down the stairs. 'Sometimes, you know,' she added, 'she can be quite pleasant. You would hardly believe it.'

Tommy sat down in the chair indicated to him by Aunt Ada and remarked mildly that he couldn't tell her much about his mother as she had been dead now for nearly forty years. Aunt Ada was unperturbed by this statement.

'Fancy,' she said, 'is it as long as that? Well, time does pass quickly.' She looked him over in a considering manner. 'Why don't you get married?' she said. 'Get some nice capable woman to look after you. You're getting on, you know. Save you taking up with all these loose women and bringing them round and speaking as though they were your wife.'

'I can see,' said Tommy, 'that I shall have to get Tuppence to bring her marriage lines along next time we come to see you.'

'Made an honest woman of her, have you?' said Aunt Ada.

'We've been married over thirty years,' said Tommy, 'and we've got a son and a daughter, and they're both married too.'

'The trouble is,' said Aunt Ada, shifting her ground with dexterity, 'that nobody tells me anything. If you'd kept me properly up to date-'

Tommy did not argue the point. Tuppence had once laid upon him a serious injunction. 'If anybody over the age of sixty-five finds fault with you,' she said, 'never argue. Never try to say you're right. Apologize at once and say it was all your fault and you're very sorry and you'll never do it again.'