Their other toys were mostly freakish sticks, and different kinds of seeds and berries. No wonder it seemed strange to them to imagine these things in a shop. But the idea engaged them, nevertheless. Down by the bathing-hole there were several enormous cotton-trees, which lift themselves on their roots right out of the earth, as on stilts, making a big cage. One of these they dubbed their toyshop: decorated it up with lace-bark, and strings of bright-coloured seeds, and their other toys: then they would go inside and take turns to sell them to each other. So now this was the picture the phrase “toyshop” evoked in them. No wonder the London kind was a surprise to them, seemed a very far-fetched fulfilment of the prophecy.

The houses in Hammersmith are tall, roomy, comfortable houses, though not big or aristocratic, with gardens running right down to the river.