She was, meanwhile, so far impressed by Mr.Magnus' confidences that she borrowed one of his novels from Caroline, who confided to her that she herself thought it the dullest and most tiresome of works.

"To be honest, I only read a bit of it--I don't know what it's about.

I think it's downright silly." This book bore the mysterious title of "Dredinger." It was concerned apparently with the experiences of a young man who, buying an empty house in Bloomsbury, discovered a pool of water in the cellar.

The young man was called Dredinger, which seemed to Maggie an unnatural kind of name.

He had an irritating habit of never finishing his sentences, and the people he knew answered him in the same inconclusive fashion.