Mops was a girl a little younger than Simon. She stood in the middle of the garden, a hose in her hands, and she was absorbed in drenching two half-naked small boys and five fox terriers, who circled around her like performers in a circus ring. The noise of yelling boys and barking dogs was terrific.
"What's she doing?" we gasped.
"It's so dev'lish hot that the hose feels bully. Like to try it?"
"I wish we had got our bathing suits," said Angel.
"Never mind. I think there's a couple of pairs of trunks in the scullery, and the young 'un can have a pinafore of Mopsie's."
He led the way down some littered steps into a basement room, where a dishevelled maid was blacking boots.
"Here Playter," he ordered, "dig up some togs for a hosing, will you? And be sharp about it, there's a love."
The girl obligingly dropped her boots, and turning out the contents of a cupboard, produced some faded blue bathing trunks.
To us they seemed shamelessly inadequate, but Simon appeared satisfied. Now he hurried us to a summer-house occupied by a family of lop-eared rabbits, and here we changed into the trunks.
[228]
