"I was born in a village no larger than this. Of course it's all gone now, swallowed up by the city. But in those days it was an hour's heliride from the city. I remember a thing or two."

Mrs. Tilton watched him drink the coffee.

"Not many people left who remember those days," he said. "For instance, did you know that unadjustables—they called them criminals then—were actually electrocuted? Strapped down to a horrible chair—"

"Don't you want the strawberries, Mr. Coat?"

He looked down at the strawberries in the bowl. "Just imagine—" but he forgot what he had wanted to say.

The woman went into the kitchen.

He had just finished drinking the coffee when he heard the child's voice in the lane outside the window. The same voice. He crossed to the window and looked out. The lane was empty.

"Mrs. Tilton!"

He heard no answer.

He went into the kitchen. The door to the garden stood open. He saw her working in a vegetable patch.

"Pst ... pst!"

She looked up.

"Did you see the child?" he called. "It must have turned into the garden."

Mrs. Tilton straightened herself, holding her back with both hands. "The child?"

"The voice, I just heard it again."

"I'll be with you in a moment, Mr. Coat."

He looked round the kitchen—the antique flagstones, the brass pots, the stove, the hand pump. There was only one anachronism: on the wall by the door, stuck behind a cluster of radishes, was a World Union Telegram.

Out in the vegetable patch, he saw Mrs. Tilton was looking about for something.

On an impulse he took down the telegram, and read:

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