In this expanded version of a popular song, the itsy-bitsy spider's climbing is interrupted by a fan, a mouse, a cat, and some dew before she makes her way to the top of a tree to spin her web.

The lives of the various characters in the 44 Scotland Street series continue in this volume: Matthew and Elspeth embark on the risky enterprise of married love; the raffish portrait painter Angus Lordie has a premonition of disaster, faces the consequences of unbridled bliss, and meets a large Glaswegian gangster bearing gifts. Irene Pollock is shocked to learn that her son Bertie harbours an unsuitable ambition. The gloriously vain Bruce discovers...