It is a Summer Monday morning, and the staff and traders arrive at East Yard with varying degrees of enthusiasm.  Mr Hunt the coal merchant is looking forward to the sound of his coal loader, compared to the noise at home of the grand-children all day yester-day which left him with a head-ache and needing an early night.  However, the family lunch had been excellent, and at least the little 'darlings' ("So spirited!") had given his Austin a good clean beforehand.  Not that this has made up for the football through the greenhouse a few months ago...

In contrast, Mr Lacey is in a joyous mood, having taken delivery of his new Rover P6.  A life-time's humouring of his Great Aunt Evadne, or, "Evadne Juliette Philadelphia Ochterlony de Lacey" as she had been at her funeral a few months ago, had paid off with her remembering 'Young Roger' in her will.

Having died at the age of 92, now-not-so-young Roger had heard, several times and in increasingly lurid detail after one-too-many Pernods, Great Aunt Evadne's tales of the distressing loss of her husband in the Boer War - she would never take a glass of Constantia again! - and moving to Paris.  Enjoying a string of admirers amongst the fashionable 'fast set' despite her widow's weeds and bustle, she retired to England twenty years ago with her recipe book and love of French wines.

How she had lived so long no-one in the family could understand, but Mr Lacey was starting to wish he had written down some of those fire-side stories of fin de siecle Paris and the Left Bank.  He pondered buying a bottle of Pernod on the way home, to raise a glass to Great Aunt Evadne after dinner.