Mindful that the female s*x, not content with having once successfully surmounted that most monumental nuisance of civilisation, the daily toilet, is addicted to inexplicable and apparently enjoyable repetitions of the same, Pip tried again, and scrutinised the pink frocks and the blue frocks. Elsie was not in any of them. Pip felt vaguely uneasy. Of course Cullyngham was almost back in town by this time. Still—The two batsmen were making a respectable show. Pip was to go in last. The greatest possible series of catastrophes could not bring his services into requisition for another twenty minutes at any rate. He would run up to the house and see. See what? He did not know, but he would go and see it.
He vaulted over a fence, slipped through a plantation, and tramped under the hot afternoo
