"I didn't know there was a reservoir at Brinkley," said Latimer.

"Well, there isn't now, it's jolly well all over the place, and as we
stand particularly low we're the centre of an inland sea just at present.
You see the river has overflowed its banks as well."

"Good gracious! Have any lives been lost?"

"Heaps, I should say. The second housemaid has already identified three
bodies that have floated past the billiard-room window as being the young
man she's engaged to. Either she's engaged to a large assortment of the
population round here or else she's very careless at identification. Of
course it may be the same body coming round again and again in a swirl; I
hadn't thought of that."

"But we ought to go out and do rescue work, oughtn't we?" said Latimer,
with the instinct of a Parliamentary candidate for getting into the local
limelight.

"We can't," said Vera decidedly, "we haven't any boats and we're cut off
by a raging torrent from any human habitation. My aunt particularly
hoped you would keep to your room and not add to the confusion, but she
thought it would be so kind of you if you would take in Hartlepool's
Wonder, the gamecock, you know, for the night. You see, there are eight
other gamecocks, and they fight like furies if they get together, so
we're putting one in each bedroom. The fowl-houses are all flooded out,
you know. And then I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind taking in this
wee piggie; he's rather a little love, but he has a vile temper. He gets
that from his mother--not that I like to say things against her when