“The Limit,” I should tell you, is (or was) a waterproof.  It is a faithful record of Edward’s artistic activities during the last thirty years, being decorated all down the front with smears of red, white and green paint.  Here and there it has been repaired with puncture patches and strips of surgical plaster, but more often it has not.  As Edward is incapable of replacing a button and Aunt Angela refuses to touch the “Limit,” he knots himself into it with odds and ends of string and has to be liberated by his ally, the cook, with a kitchen knife.  Edward calls it his “garden coat,” and swears he only wears it on dirty jobs, to save his new mackintosh, but nevertheless he is sincerely attached to the rag, and once attempted to travel to London to a Royal Society beano in it, and was only frustrated in the nick of time.

So the oft-threatened “Limit” had been reached at last.  I laughed heartily for a moment, then a sudden cold dread gripped me, and I raced upstairs and tore open my wardrobe.  Gregory, the glory of Gopherville, had gone too!

A word as to Gregory.  If you look at a map of Montana and follow a line due North through from Fort Custer you will not find Gopherville, because a cyclone removed it some eight years ago.  Nine years ago, however, Gregory and I first met in the “Bon Ton Parisian Clothing Store,” in the main (and only) street of Gopherville, and I secured him for ten dollars cash.  He is a mauve satin waistcoat, embroidered with a chaste design of anchors and forget-me-nots, subtly suggesting perennial fidelity.  The combination of Gregory and me proved irresistible at all Gopherville’s social events.

Wishing to create a favourable atmosphere, I wore Gregory at my first party in England.  I learn that Aunt Angela disclaimed all knowledge of me during that evening.

Subsequently she made several determined attempts to present Gregory to the gardener, the butcher’s boy and to an itinerant musician as an overcoat for his simian colleague.  Had I foiled her in all of these to be beaten in the end?  No, not without a struggle.  I scampered downstairs again and, wresting Harriet’s bicycle from its owner’s hands (Harriet is the housemaid and it was her night out), was soon pedalling furiously after Edward.

The jumble sale was being held in the schools and all St. Gwithian was there, fighting tooth and nail over the bargains.  A jumble sale is to rus what remnant sales are to urbs.  I battled my way round to each table in turn, but nowhere could I find my poor dear old Gregory.  Then I saw Etta, the presiding genius, and butted my way towards her.

“Look here,” I gasped—­“have you by any chance seen—?” I gave her a full description of the lost one.

Etta nodded.  “Sort of illuminated horse-blanket?  Oh, yes, I should say I have.”

“Tell me,” I panted—­“tell me, is it sold yet?  Who bought it?  Where is—?”

“It’s not sold yet,” said Etta calmly.  “There was such rivalry over it that it’s going to be raffled.  Tickets half-a-crown each.  Like one?”