anything thrilling happens too soon after dinner. And after
the audience had heard the Whortleberry scream the thing
would be fairly launched."

"And the plot?"

"The plot," said Reginald, "would be one of those little
everyday tragedies that one sees going on all round one. In
my mind's eye there is the case of the Mudge-Jervises, which
in an unpretentious way has quite an Enoch Arden intensity
underlying it. They'd only been married some eighteen months
or so, and circumstances had prevented their seeing much of
each other. With him there was always a foursome or
something that had to be played and replayed in different
parts of the country, and she went in for slumming quite as
seriously as if it was a sport. With her, I suppose, it was.
She belonged to the Guild of the Poor Dear Souls, and they
hold the record for having nearly reformed a washerwoman. No
one has ever really reformed a washerwoman, and that is why
the competition is so keen. You can rescue charwomen by
fifties with a little tea and personal magnetism, but with
washerwomen it's different; wages are too high. This
particular laundress, who came from Bermondsey or some such
place, was really rather a hopeful venture, and they thought
at last that she might be safely put in the window as a
specimen of successful work. So they had her paraded at a
drawing-room "At Home" at Agatha Camelford's; it was sheer
bad luck that some liqueur chocolates had been turned loose
by mistake among the refreshments--really liqueur chocolates,
with very little chocolate. And of course the old soul found