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rail of the tall gate. His fierce expression suggested he was trying desperately not to cry.
    â€œWhat’s up?” Daisy asked with assumed calm, eyeing the ironwork with a devout hope that she was not going to have to climb it.

    â€œM-my foot slipped and went through the g-gap and I can’t pull it out, and I can’t reach to untie my shoe-laces to take off my shoe.”
    The dog whined. Belinda hugged her and said with confidence, “It’s all right, Tinker Bell, Aunt Daisy will rescue him.”
    Daisy had just decided she would have to kilt up her skirts like Leezie Lindsay in the old Scots ballad, when a diffident voice came from behind her.
    â€œMay I perhaps be of some assistance, madam?”
    A short, portly man was dismounting from an aged bicycle. He wore clerical black, with trouser-clips, and a dog collar. Politely raising an old-fashioned Panama hat circled with a faded tartan ribbon, he revealed thinning black hair, a few strands carefully combed across his involuntary tonsure.
    â€œMr. Osborne, I don’t expect you remember me—Daisy Dalrymple, Derek’s aunt. It’s kind of you to offer, but I think I’m going to have to climb after him. His foot’s caught and he can’t take off his shoe.”
    â€œAllow me, Miss Dalrymple.”
    The vicar kicked down his bicycle stand, took off his hat, which he gravely handed to Belinda to hold, and laboriously clambered up the ironwork. A moment later, Derek’s shoe fell.
    â€œGosh, thank you, sir,” said Derek, and scrambled down.
    Mr. Osborne was descending at a more cautious pace, when a snort of laughter made Daisy turn away from the unlikely spectacle.
    A short, portly man was crossing the road from the churchyard. He wore plus-fours in a bright blue and tan check which reminded Daisy of Alec’s sergeant, Tom Tring. Above this striking garment floated an academic gown, black with a slight sheen. A face which proclaimed a close relationship to the vicar was topped by a cricket cap a good two sizes too small.

    â€œHo!” exclaimed the apparition. “A more improbable exponent of Muscular Christianity one can scarcely conceive. D’you need a hand down, Ozzy?”
    â€œNot at all, not at all,” said the vicar crossly, glancing round as he felt with one foot for a toe-hold. “What on earth have you got on your head, Ozzy?”
    Ozzy Two reached up, removed his cap, and regarded it with an air of jovial puzzlement. “Good Lord, I believe it must be your Jeremy’s. It did seem a trifle tight. I’ve mislaid my hat again, so I picked up the first which came to hand. And if you’re wondering about the gown, madam,” he continued to Daisy, “after so many years, I simply feel undressed without it.”
    As the Reverend Osbert Osborne reached the ground and dusted himself down, a cry of anguish arose.
    â€œTinker’s got my shoe! Grab her, Bel, quick. Tinker, come back here, you rotter. Bad dog!”
    But Tinker Bell pranced away up the avenue with her prize. Derek hopped after her, then set socked foot to ground and took off in hot pursuit. Thrusting the Panama hat into the vicar’s hands, Belinda sped after them.
    The professor chortled. “Cave canem,” he observed. “I think I may be permitted that small jest, though I have promised Ozzy not to go about quoting Latin and Greek at people, a habit as difficult to abandon as my gown. My dear sister-in-law, who had not the benefits of a Classical education, finds it distressing. I trust you are not distressed, madam?”
    â€œNot a bit,” said Daisy with a smile. She rather liked his archly jocular manner, though she could imagine it might wear thin if one were forced to endure a great deal of it. “‘Beware of the dog’ is just within my capabilities.”
    â€œâ€˜ O quanta species …
    â€œMiss Dalrymple,” the vicar intervened, with an admonitory
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