- (i) Major Benjy, or
- (ii) Captain Puffin, or those of
- (iii) Both.
Miss Mapp let go of her thumb and lightly touched her forefinger.
II. The Padre might arrive alone.
In that case anything or nothing might have happened to either or both of the others, and the various contingencies hanging on this arrival were so numerous that there was not time to sort them out.
III. The Padre might arrive with two limping figures whom he assisted.
Here it must not be forgotten that Captain Puffin always limped, and the Major occasionally. Miss Mapp did not forget it.
IV. The Padre might arrive with a stretcher. Query—Whose?
V. The Padre might arrive with two stretchers.
VI. Three stretchers might arrive from the shining sands, at the town where the women were weeping and wringing their hands.
In that case Miss Mapp saw herself busily employed in strengthening poor Evie, who now was running about like a mouse from group to group picking up crumbs of Cosmic Consciousness.
Miss Mapp had got as far as sixthly, though she was aware she had not exhausted the possibilities, when the tram stopped. She furtively took out from her pocket (she had focussed them before she put them in) the opera-glasses through which she had watched the station-yard on a day which had been very much less exciting than this. After one glance she put them back again, feeling vexed and disappointed with herself, for the
