Book I
Chapter 1 Mainly Concerning Books

‘Books!’ said Tuppence.
She produced the word rather with the effect of a bad-tempered¹ explo-sion.
‘What did you say?’ said Tommy.
Tuppence looked across the room at him.
‘I said “books”,’ she said.
‘I see what you mean,’ said Thomas Beresford.
In front of Tuppence were three large packing cases. From each of themvarious books had been extracted. The larger part of them were still filledwith books.
‘It’s incredible,’ said Tuppence.
‘You mean the room they take up?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you trying to put them all on the shelves?’
‘I don’t know what I’m trying to do,’ said Tuppence. ‘That’s the awkwardpart of it. One doesn’t know ever, exactly, what one wants to do. Oh dear,’
she sighed.
‘Really,’ said her husband, ‘I should have thought that that was not at allcharacteristic of you. The trouble with you has always been that you knewmuch too well what you do want to do.’
‘What I mean is,’ said Tuppence, ‘that here we are, getting older, gettinga bit–well, let’s face it–definitely rheumatic, especially when one is stretch-ing; you know, stretching putting in books or lifting things down fromshelves or kneeling down to look at the bottom shelves for something,then finding it a bit difficult to get up again.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Tommy, ‘that’s an account of our general disabilities. Isthat what you started to say?’
‘No, it isn’t what I started to say. What I started to say was, it was lovelyto be able to buy a new home and find just the place we wanted to go andlive in, and just the house there we’d always dreamt of having–with a littlealteration, of course.’
‘Knocking one or two rooms into each other,’ said Tommy, ‘and addingto it what you call a veranda³ and your builder calls a lodger⁴, though Iprefer to call it a loggia.’
‘And it’s going to be very nice,’ said Tuppence firmly.
‘When you’ve done it I shan’t know it! Is that the answer?’ said Tommy.
‘Not at all. All I said was that when you see it finished you’re going to bedelighted and say what an ingenious and clever and

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