Chapter 4:

In which an old client returns and becomes a new client.

The office was a disaster, so Flopsy decided she would go for a walk. Mopsy was asleep, so she didn’t bother inviting him. Who knows when he might wake up!

Flopsy thought about the problems they had with their detective agency. First they had had the problem of not having any clients. Then they had had the problems of actually having clients.

“Why can’t we get better clients?” she said to herself, out loud. “That civet was extremely rude. And also he ate our bird.”

“I’m right here, you know,” said the civet.

And it was true. Flopsy had not managed to get very far from the office on her walk, but the civet appeared to be moving even more slowly.

“You!” said Flopsy. “First you are rude to us on the office. And now you are rude to me out here.”

“It is a public street,” said the civet, “and I thought it would be more rude if I didn’t say anything to you. Isn’t that true?”

Flopsy had to admit that this civet was right.

“You are right,” she said. “I hate to admit it, but you are right.”

“Does that mean . . .” said the civet.

“Yes,” said Fatsy. “By the Detective’s Code that means that I have to listen to whatever case you have to bring me.”

That is not what the Detective’s Code says. The Detective’s Code is a very thick book that lists all the complicated rules that govern your behavior when you are a detective. To be a detective, you have to memorize everything that is in the Detective’s Code and then pass a test. That makes you a Licensed Detective.

Flopsy, it should be said, had not passed the exam to be a Licensed Detective. She had not even bothered to take the exam. But people thought more highly of Licensed Detectives than those who were not Licensed, so Flopsy said that she had passed the exams. It just made things easier. Besides, Mopsy had read the whole book. He had not passed the exam, but that was because, he said, of a technicality, though he would not tell anyone what the technicality was.

If Flopsy had been a Licensed Detective or had bothered to read the Detective’s Code, she would have known that it did not actually say anything about taking the cases of people you meet in the street because they were right about matters of rudeness. But Flopsy had not read the Detective’s Code, nor had the civet, and that was how they ended up in this situation.

“Okay,” said Flopsy. “I will listen to what you have to say. But I’ll have to run anything past my partner, I can’t just agree like that.”

“I see,” said the civet. “Should I tell you what the problem is?”

“Yes,” saidFlopsy, “but be quick about it. I don’t have all day. In fact, I have a meeting in ten minutes.”

This was not true. No one would schedule a meeting with Flopsy, and if they did, she would almost certainly when the meeting was. But she still didn’t like the civet, and she wasn’t going to give him any more of her time than she had to.