Now the discovery is by everybody simultaneously made and
simultaneously announced that Robert is already later in starting
than he has ever been (he always was) and immediately Rosalie
would become witness of the last and most violent skirmish in this
devoted attendance. Everybody rushes around hunting for things and
pushing them on to Robert and pushing Robert, festooned with them,
towards the door. Where was his cap? Where was his satchel? Where
was his lunch? Where were his books? Who had seen his atlas? Who
had seen his pencil box? Who had seen his gymnasium belt? Was his
bicycle ready? Was his coat on his bicycle? Was that button on his
coat?

With these alarums at their height and the excursions attendant on
them at their busiest, another splendid male would enter the room
and immediately there was, as Rosalie always saw, a transference
of attendance to him and a violent altercation between him and
the first splendid male. This new splendid male is Rosalie's other
brother, Harold. Harold was eighteen and him also the entire female
population of the rectory combined to push out of the rectory every
morning. Harold was due to be pushed off half an hour later than
Robert, and as he was a greater and more splendid male than Robert
(though infinitely lesser than her father) so the place to which
he was pushed off was far more mysterious and enthralling than the
place to which Robert was pushed off. A school Rosalie could dimly
understand. But a bank! Why Harold should go to sit on a bank all
day, and why he should ride on a bicycle to Ashborough to find a
bank when there were banks all around the rectory, and even in the
garden itself, Rosalie never could imagine. Mysterious Harold! Anna
had told her that men kept money in banks; but Rosalie had never
found money in a bank though she had looked; yet banks--of all