"It's instantaneous, you know," said Myra gently.

This so unnerved Simpson that he let the thing off without any further
warning, before we had time to get our expressions natural.

"That was all right, Myra, wasn't it?" he said proudly.

"I'm--I'm afraid you had your hand over the lens, Samuel dear."

"Our new photographic series: 'Palms of the Great.' No. 1, Mr. S.
Simpson's," murmured Archie.

"It wouldn't have been a very good one anyhow," I said encouragingly. "It
wasn't typical. Dahlia should have had an orange in her hand, and Myra
might have been resting her cheek against a cactus. Try it again,
Simpson, and get a little more colour into it."

He tried again and got a lot more colour into it.

"Strictly speaking," said Myra sadly, "you ought to have got it on to a
new film."

Simpson looked in horror at the back of his camera, found that he had
forgotten to turn the handle, apologized profusely, and wound up very
gingerly till the number "2" approached. "Now then," he said, looking
up ... and found himself alone.

* * * * *

As I write this in London I have Simpson's album in front of me. Should