sively," I explained. "I won't do it. That's final. I simply will
not do it."

"You will do it, young Bertie, or never darken my doors again. And you
know what that means. No more of Anatole's dinners for you."

A strong shudder shook me. She was alluding to her _chef_, that superb
artist. A monarch of his profession, unsurpassed--nay, unequalled--at
dishing up the raw material so that it melted in the mouth of the
ultimate consumer, Anatole had always been a magnet that drew me to
Brinkley Court with my tongue hanging out. Many of my happiest moments
had been those which I had spent champing this great man's roasts and
ragouts, and the prospect of being barred from digging into them in the
future was a numbing one.

"No, I say, dash it!"

"I thought that would rattle you. Greedy young pig."

"Greedy young pigs have nothing to do with it," I said with a touch of
hauteur. "One is not a greedy young pig because one appreciates the
cooking of a genius."

"Well, I will say I like it myself," conceded the relative. "But not
another bite of it do you get, if you refuse to do this simple, easy,
pleasant job. No, not so much as another sniff. So put that in your
twelve-inch cigarette-holder and smoke it."

I began to feel like some wild thing caught in a snare.

"But why do you want me? I mean, what am I? Ask yourself that."

"I often have."

"I mean to say, I'm not the type. You have to have some terrific nib to
give away prizes. I seem to remember, when I was at school, it was
generally a prime minister or somebody."

"Ah, but that was at Eton. At Market Snodsbury we aren't nearly so
choosy. Anybody in spats impresses us."

"Why don't you get Uncle Tom?"

"Uncle Tom!"

"Well, why not? He's got spats."

"Bertie," she said, "I will tell you why not Uncle Tom. You remember me
losing all that money at baccarat at Cannes? Well, very shortly I shall
have to sidle up to Tom and break the news to him. If, right after that,
I ask him to put on lavender gloves and a topper and distribute the
prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School, there will be a divorce in the
family. He would pin a note to the pincushion and be off like a rabbit.
No, my lad, you're for it, so you may as well make the best of it."

"But, Aunt Dahlia, listen to reason. I assure you, you've got hold of the
wrong man. I'm hopeless at a game like that. Ask Jeeves about the time I
got lugged in to address a girls' school. I made the most colossal ass