have never seen
before and never want to see again. But no licence is allowed in the
opposite direction."

"Opposite direction; what opposite direction?" queried Mrs. Thackenbury.

"There is no outlet for demonstrating your feelings towards people whom
you simply loathe. That is really the crying need of our modern
civilisation. Just think how jolly it would be if a recognised day were
set apart for the paying off of old scores and grudges, a day when one
could lay oneself out to be gracefully vindictive to a carefully
treasured list of 'people who must not be let off.' I remember when I
was at a private school we had one day, the last Monday of the term I
think it was, consecrated to the settlement of feuds and grudges; of
course we did not appreciate it as much as it deserved, because, after
all, any day of the term could be used for that purpose. Still, if one
had chastised a smaller boy for being cheeky weeks before, one was always
permitted on that day to recall the episode to his memory by chastising
him again. That is what the French call reconstructing the crime."

"I should call it reconstructing the punishment," said Mrs. Thackenbury;
"and, anyhow, I don't see how you could introduce a system of primitive
schoolboy vengeance into civilised adult life. We haven't outgrown our
passions, but we are supposed to have learned how to keep them within
strictly decorous limits."

"Of course the thing would have to be done furtively and politely," said
Clovis; "the charm of it would be that it would never be perfunctory like
the other thing. Now, for instance, you say to yourself: 'I must show
the Webleys some attention at Christmas, they were kind to dear Bertie at
Bournemouth,' and you send them a calendar, and daily for six days after
Christmas the male Webley asks the female Webley if she has remembered to
thank you for the calendar you sent them. Well, transplant that idea to
the other and more human side of your nature, and say to yourself: 'Next
Thursday is Nemesis Day; what on earth can I do to those odious people
next door who made such an absurd fuss when Ping Yang bit their youngest
child?' Then you'd get up awfully early on the allotted day and climb
over into their garden and dig for truffles on their tennis court with a
good gardening fork, choosing, of course, that part of the court that was
screened from observation by the laurel bushes. You wouldn't find any
truffles but you would find a g