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although it had a bell round its neck and a collar with his name on. He had lost it two days ago down a rabbit hole and was afraid he might have to leave without it, and even if he found it, he wasn't sure they would let him take it with him.
    "That's neither there nor here," said Hendreary, drumming his fingers on the table.
    They all seemed very anxious and at the same time curiously calm.
    Hendreary glanced round the table. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine," he said gloomily and began to stroke his beard.
    "Pod, here," said Homily, "can help borrow."
    "And I could, too," put in Arrietty.
    "And I could," echoed Timmus in a sudden squeaky voice. They all turned round to look at him, except Hendreary, and Lupy stroked his hair.
    "Borrow what? " asked Hendreary. "No, it isn't borrowers we want; on the contrary"—he glanced across the table, and Homily, meeting his eye, suddenly turned pink— "it's something left to borrow. They won't leave a crumb behind, those two, not if I know 'em. We'll have to live, from now on, on just what we've saved..."
    "For as long as it lasts," said Lupy grimly.
    "For as long as it lasts," repeated Hendreary, "and such as it is." All their eyes grew wider.
    "Which it won't do forever," said Lupy. She glanced up at her store shelves and quickly away again. She too had become rather red.
    "About borrowing..." ventured Homily. "I was meaning out-of-doors ... the vegetable patch ... beans and peas ... and suchlike."
    "The birds will have them," said Hendreary, "with this house closed and the human beings gone. The birds always know in a trice.... And what's more," he went on, "there's more wild things and vermin in these woods than in all the rest of the county put together ... weasels, stoats, foxes, badgers, shrikes, magpies, sparrow hawks, crows..."
    "That's enough, Hendreary," Pod put in quickly. "Homily's feeling faint...."
    "It's all right..." murmured Homily. She took a sip of water out of the acorn cup, and staring down at the table, she rested her head on her hand.
    Hendreary, carried away by the length of his list, seemed not to notice. "...owls and buzzards," he concluded in a satisfied voice. "You've seen the skins for yourselves nailed up on the outhouse door, and the birds strung up on a thornbush, gamekeeper's gibbet they call it. He keeps them down all right, when he's well and about. And the boy, too, takes a hand. But with them two gone—!" Hendreary raised his gaunt arms and cast his eyes toward the ceiling.
    No one spoke. Arrietty stoke a look at Timmus, whose face had become very pale.
    "And when the house is closed and shuttered," Hendreary went on again suddenly, "how do you propose to get out?" He looked round the table triumphantly as one who had made a point. Homily, her head on her hand, was silent. She had begun to regret having spoken.
    "There's always ways," murmured Pod.
    Hendreary pounced on him. "Such as?" When Pod did not reply at once, Hendreary thundered on, "The last time they went away we had a plague of field mice ... the whole house awash with them, upstairs and down. Now when they lock up, they lock up proper. Not so much as a spider could get in!"

    "Nor out," said Lupy, nodding.
    "Nor out," agreed Hendreary, and as though exhausted by his own eloquence, he took a sip from the cup.
    For a moment or two no one spoke. Then Pod cleared his throat. "They won't be gone forever," he said.
    Hendreary shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows?"
    "Looks to me," said Pod, "that they'll always need a gamekeeper. Say this one goes, another moves in like. Won't be empty long—a good house like this on the edge of the coverts, with water laid on in the washhouse...."
    "Who knows?" said Hendreary again.
    "Your problem, as I see it," went on Pod, "is to hold out over a period."
    "That's it," agreed Hendreary.
    "But you don't know for how long; that's your problem."
    "That's it," agreed Hendreary.
    "The farther you can stretch your food," Pod elaborated, "the