“We thanked him, and said that we quite understood it would probably be no good, but that we should like an order all the same⁠—just in case. And we went there straight away in a taxi, for, after all, you never know. No. 4 was on the second floor, and just as we were waiting for the lift, Elsie Ferguson⁠—she’s a friend of mine, Captain Hastings, and they are looking for a flat too⁠—came hurrying down the stairs. ‘Ahead of you for once, my dear,’ she said. ‘But it’s no good. It’s already let.’ That seemed to finish it, but⁠—well, as John said, the place was very cheap, we could afford to give more, and perhaps if we offered a premium.⁠—A horrid thing to do, of course, and I feel quite ashamed of telling you, but you know what flat-hunting is.”

I assured her that I was well aware that in the struggle for houseroom the baser side of human nature frequently triumphed over the higher, and that the well-known rule of dog eat dog always applied.