Jonah and Co. Yates Dornford

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СКАЧАТЬ on both taps. … As if by magic the steam disappears, the roaring subsides, and two broad streams of pure cold water issue, like crystal founts, into the bath. Now you know why I'm so jolly this morning."

      With tears running down her cheeks—

      "You must have a bath in the dressing-room," wailed Daphne. "The others do."

      "I won't," said Berry. "It faces North."

      "Then you must have it at night."

      "Not to-night," I interposed. "Nobby's bagged it."

      With the laugh of a maniac, my brother-in-law requested that the facts should be laid before the Sealyham, and the latter desired to waive his rights.

      "Of course," he concluded, "if you want me to become verminous, just say so."

      There was a shriek of laughter.

      "And now be quick," said Daphne, "or we shall be late for the meet.

       And I particularly want to see Sally."

      Sarah Featherstone was the possessor of the coveted shawl.

      We had met her by chance upon the boulevard two days before. No one of us had had any idea that she was not in Ireland, whither she had retired upon her marriage, and where her passion for hunting kept her most of the year, and when we learned that she had already spent six months in the Pyrenees, and would be at Pau all the winter, we could hardly believe our ears. Her little son, it appeared, had been ailing, and the air of the Pyrenees was to make him well. So their summer had been passed in the mountains, and, with three good hunters from Ireland, the winter was to be supported under the shadow of the healing hills.

      "It hurts me to think of Ireland, but I'm getting to love this place. I want the rain on my face sometimes, and the earth doesn't smell so sweet; but the sun's a godsend—I've never seen it before—and the air makes me want to shout. Oh, I've got a lot to be thankful for. Peter's put on a stone and a half to date, George'll be out for Christmas, and, now that you've come to stay … "

      We were all glad of Sarah—till yesterday.

      Now, however, she had set up a golden calf, which our womenkind were worshipping out of all reason and convenience.

      At the mention of the false prophet's name, Jonah and I pushed back our chairs.

      "Don't leave me," said Berry, "I know what's coming. I had it last night until I fell asleep. Then that harpy"—he nodded at Daphne—"dared to rouse me out of a most refreshing slumber to ask me whether I thought 'the Chinese did both sides at once or one after the other.' With my mind running on baths, I said they probably began on their feet and washed upwards. By the time the misunderstanding had been cleared up, I was thoroughly awake and remained in a hideous and agonising condition of sleepless lassitude for the space of one hour. The tea came sharp at half-past seven, and the shawl rolled up twenty seconds later. I tell you I'm sick of the blasted comforter."

      A squall of indignation succeeded this blasphemy.

      When order had been restored—

      "Any way," said Jill, "Sally says the sailor who sold it her 'll be back with some more things next month, and she's going to send him here. He only comes twice a year, and——"

      "Isn't it curious," said Jonah, "how a sailor never dies at sea?"

      "Most strange," said Berry. "The best way will be to ask him to stay here. Then he can have a bath in the morning, and we can bury him behind the garage."

      * * * * *

      With that confident accuracy which waits upon a player only when it is uncourted, Jill cracked her ball across the six yards of turf and into the hole.

      "Look at that," said Adèle.

      Jonah raised his eyes to heaven.

      "And the game," he said, "means nothing to her. It never has. Years ago she and I got into the final at Hunstanton. She put me dead on the green at the thirteenth, and I holed out. When I turned round to say we were three up, she wasn't there. Eventually I found her looking for her iron. She'd laid it down, to start on a daisy chain."

      "I only put it down for a second," protested Jill, "and you must admit the daisies were simply huge."

      "What happened?" said Adèle, bubbling.

      "The daisy chain won us the match. She was much more interested in the former, and actually continued its fabrication between her shots."

      We passed to the next tee.

      As I was addressing the ball—

      "Don't top it," said Jill.

      "Have I been topping them to-day?".

      "No, Boy. Only do be careful. I believe there's a lark's nest down there, and it'd be a shame——"

      "There you are," said Jonah.

      "Now," said I, "I'm dead certain to top it."

      "Well, then, drive more to the right," said Jill. "After all, it's only a game."

      "I'll take your word for it," said I.

      Of course, I topped the ball, but at the next hole my grey-eyed cousin discovered that our caddie had a puppy in his pocket, so we won easily.

      As we made for the club-house—

      "Only ten days to Christmas," said Adèle. "Can you believe me?"

      "With an effort," said I. "It's almost too hot to be true."

      Indeed, it might have been a June morning.

      The valley was sleepy beneath the mid-day sun; the slopes of the sheltering foot-hills looked warm and comfortable; naked but unashamed, the woods were smiling; southward, a long flash spoke of the sunlit peaks and the dead march of snow; and there, a league away, grey Pau was basking contentedly, her decent crinoline of villas billowing about her sides, lazily looking down on such a fuss and pother as might have bubbled out of the pot of Revolution, but was, in fact, the hospitable rite daily observed on the arrival of the Paris train.

      "I simply must get some presents," continued my wife. "We'll start to-morrow."

      I groaned.

      "You can't get anything here," I protested. "And people don't expect presents when you're in the South of France."

      "That's just when they do," said Adèle. "All your friends consider that it's a chance in a lifetime, and, if you don't take it, they never forgive you."

      "Well, I haven't got any friends," said I. "So that's that. And you used to tell me you had very few."

      "Ah," said Adèle, "that was before we were engaged. That was to excite your sympathy."

      I appealed to my cousins for support.

      "Nothing doing," said Jonah. "If you didn't want this sort of thing, what did СКАЧАТЬ