o right and left was
flavourless and insipid compared to the tremendous discoveries which
daily and hourly awaited the trained observer of the street that lay
directly in front of her window.

There was little that concerned the social movements of Tilling that
could not be proved, or at least reasonably conjectured, from Miss
Mapp's eyrie. Just below her house on the left stood Major Flint's
residence, of Georgian red brick like her own, and opposite was that of
Captain Puffin. They were both bachelors, though Major Flint was
generally supposed to have been the hero of some amazingly amorous
adventures in early life, and always turned the subject with great
abruptness when anything connected with duelling was mentioned. It was
not, therefore, unreasonable to infer that he had had experiences of a
bloody sort, and colour was added to this romantic conjecture by the
fact that in damp, rheumatic weather his left arm was very stiff, and he
had been known to say that his wound troubled him. What wound that was
no one exactly knew (it might have been anything from a vaccination mark
to a sabre-cut), for having said that his wound troubled him, he would
invariably add: "Pshaw! that's enough about an old campaigner"; and
though he might subsequently talk of nothing else except the old
campaigner, he drew a veil over his old campaigns. That he had seen
service in India was, indeed, probable by his referring to lunch as
tiffin, and calling to his parlour-maid with the ejaculation of
"Qui-hi." As her name was Sarah, this was clearly a reminiscence of days
in bungalows. When not in a rage, his manner to his own sex was bluff
and hearty; but whether in a rage or not, his manner to the fairies, or
lovely woman, was gallant and pompous in the extreme. He certainly had a
lock of hair in a small gold specimen case on his watch-chain, and had
been seen to kiss it when, rather carelessly, he thought that he was
unobserved.

Miss Mapp's eye, as she took her seat in her window on this sunny July
morning, lingered for a moment on the Major's house, before she
proceeded to give a disgusted glance at the pictures on the back page of
her morning illustrated paper, which chiefly represented young women
dancing in rings in the surf, or lying on the beach in attitudes which
Miss Mapp would have scorned to adjust herself to. Neither the Major nor
Captain Puffin were very early risers, but it was about time that the
first signals of animation mig