“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.”]

* * * * *

THE PERILS OF HUMOUR.

From Punch:—­

    “’THE PROFITEER’S ANTHEM.

    The hymns to be sung will be (1) “All people that on earth do well."’—­
    Rangoon Times.”

From The Manchester Evening Chronicle:—­

    “’THE PROFITEER’S ANTHEM.

    The hymns to be sung will be (1) “All people that on earth do dwell."’

    Rangoon Times, quoted in Punch.”

* * * * *

    “It was reported to the Sanitary Committee yesterday that the Inspector
    of Nuisances had made arrangements for the repair of the meteorological
    instruments.”—­Local Paper.

Judging by our recent weather, quite the right man to look after it.

* * * * *

From a money-lender’s circular:—­

    “Having been, perhaps, the richest nation in the world before the war,
    and wealth being only comparative, it is our empirical duty to achieve
    a like position again.”