"Well, that's a fairly good lead," said Sinclair. "I propose to double
you on mushrooms and I should like to be put down for a kidney. What
about you, Henry?"

"Nothing but one rasher of bacon, please," said Henry meekly. "I am
never hungry in the morning and I have always wanted to know how much
bacon there is in a rasher. A single cup of tea, no sugar, but plenty of
cream."

My wife had been writing busily. Now she looked up. "What about toast?"
she enquired.

"You _are_ going into details," said Sinclair approvingly. "Doesn't it
rather depend on the size of the slice? You may enter me for a couple of
slices, three by two. And jam--no, marmalade. An ounce of marmalade."

"Do be quiet while I add it up," said my wife, for Sinclair was causing
a lot of confusion by trying to barter a brace of mushrooms against my
second egg (or at least to hold an option on the egg) in case he changed
his mind before the morning. "And now I'll just send this to the
kitchen, and then I'll go to bed."

It never really panned out well. On the first morning a very awkward
thing happened. My wife, in her zeal to provide for her guests, had
omitted to count herself in. We had to make a subscription for her, and
it must be said that a splendid response was forthcoming, Sinclair nobly
renouncing his kidney. But the result was that lunch had to be put
half-an-hour earlier, and the day was disorganised.

On the second morning, the Rev. Henry was down early and bagged all my
toast, while Sinclair, who had slept badly, refused to meet his
obligations in the matter of kedjeree.

By the third day there was a good deal of unseemly barter and exchange
going on, and Sinclair made a corner in eggs. "The trouble is," he
explained, "that you never really know how good a thing is till you see
it. Overnight a sardine on toast means nothing to me; and it was never
announced that these eggs were going to be poached."

On the fourth day the scheme was tottering. Sinclair had actually been
for a walk before breakfast and was consequently making an unsuccessful
tour of the table in quest of extra toast. He then looked for the second
time under the little blue blanket that keeps the eggs warm and peered
disconsolately into the coffee pot. And then he struck.

"I'm afraid we shall have to chuck it," he announced. "We mean well, but
it doesn't work."

My wife was a good deal taken aback, but Sinclair went on to prove his
case.

"We are trying to avo