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Page 10
* * * * *
I came down to breakfast and found John with a copy beside him. I looked at
him.
"Yes," he said, "the worst has happened. It is in print. We have been
waiting for you to appear."
He turned the pages and cleared his throat.
"I shall now read the article aloud," he said. "Each time I raise my hand
the audience will please burst into hearty laughter."
Margery giggled.
"Cecilia," I said, rising, "if you don't control this reptile that you have
married, if you don't force him to hold his peace, if you allow him to read
one word, I'll throw the bread-knife at him and ... and pour my coffee all
over the tablecloth."
"John," said Cecilia, "have a little thought for others and read it quietly
to yourself."
Cecilia meant well, of course, but Margery giggled again.
John read it to himself in a dead silence, sighed heavily and passed it to
Margery.
"We shall never live it down," he said, putting his head into his hands and
gazing moodily at the marmalade.
Margery read it and giggled three or four times; but Margery giggles at
anything.
Cecilia read it and beamed.
"Alan, dear," she said, "it's lovely! Of _course_ they accepted it. John,
you wretch, say you liked it." (Cecilia can be a dear.)
"Well, if I must tell the truth," said John, "it isn't quite so bad as I
expected. In fact I very much doubt whether he wrote it at all. If he
did--well, it's a marvellous fluke, that's all."
I smiled.
"You may smile, swelled-head," said John; "but I'll bet you five golden
guineas to a bad tanner you couldn't do it again."
"Done," I said.
After a few days, however, I realised that I had made a mistake. Even a bad
sixpence is worth something nowadays.
Cecilia and Margery vied with each other in offering me the feeblest
suggestions for articles that they felt sure would reduce a rhinoceros to
hysterics. John presented me with a copy of _A Thousand and One Jokes and
Anecdotes_ "to prove he was a sportsman," he said. I started to look for a
bad sixpence.
Then Margery said to me:--
"Why don't you write and explain the whole thing to the Editor and offer to
go halves if he prints it?"
I looked at her in amazement.
"You horrible little cheat!" I said.
* * * * *
However, on thinking it over carefully there seems a lot to say for the
idea and it's really quite fair. Anyhow I can't possibly let John win. So
here's the story, and with any luck it will cost John five golden guineas.
But I shan't give the Editor half.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Little Girl (rather sceptical about what she regards as her
new toy)._ "PUT HIM ON THE FLOOR, MUMMY, AND SEE IF HE'LL GO."]
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