ater-colours, I am treasurer of
the cricket club; my life is full of activities."
"This only takes a quarter of an hour before your bath, Jeremy."
"I am shaving then; I should cut myself and get all the soap in my eyes.
It would be most dangerous. When you were a widow, and Baby and the pony
were orphans, you and Mrs. Hodgkin would be sorry. But it would be too
late. The Vicar, tearing himself away from Position 5 to conduct the
funeral service----"
"Jeremy, _don't_!"
"Ah, woman, now I move you. You are beginning to see what you were in
danger of doing. Death I laugh at; but a fat death--the death of a stout
man who has swallowed the shaving-brush through taking too deep a breath
before beginning Exercise 3, that is more than I can bear."
"Jeremy!"
"When I said I wanted to kill someone for you, I didn't think you would
suggest myself, least of all that you wanted me fattened up like a
Christmas turkey first. To go down to posterity as the large-bodied
gentleman who inhaled the badger's hair; to be billed in the London
press in the words, 'Curious Fatal Accident to Adipose Treasurer'--to do
this simply by way of celebrating your twenty-sixth birthday, when we
actually have a bottle of Apollinaris left in the Apollinaris
bin--darling, you cannot have been thinking----"
His wife patted his head again gently. "Oh, Jeremy, you hopeless
person," she sighed. "Give me a new sunshade. I want one badly."
"No," said Jeremy, "Baby shall give you that. For myself I am still
feeling that I should like to kill somebody for you. Lloyd George? No.
F. E. Smith? N-no...." He rubbed his head thoughtfully. "Who invented
those exercises?" he asked suddenly.
"A German, I think."
"Then," said Jeremy, buttoning up his coat, "I shall go and kill
_him_."
ONE OF OUR SUFFERERS
There is no question before the country of more importance than that of
National Health. In my own small way I have made something of a study of
it, and when a Royal Commission begins its enquiries, I shall put before
it the evidence which I have accumulated. I shall lay particular stress
upon the health of Thomson.
"You'll beat me to-day," he said, as he swung his club stiffly on the
first tee; "I shan't be able to hit a ball."
"You should have some lessons," I suggested.
Thomson gave a snort of indignation.
"It's not _that_," he said. "But I've been very seedy lately, and----"
"That's all right; I shan't mind. I haven't played
|