funds and chapel funds, and football and cricket clubs and
regattas, and bazaars and beanfeasts and bellringers, and
poultry shows and ploughing matches, and reading-rooms and
choir outings, and shooting trophies and testimonials, and
anything of that sort; but bribery would not have been
tolerated.

I fancy I have perhaps more talent for electioneering than
for poetry, and I was really getting extended over this
quatrain business. The egg began to be unmanageable, and the
Duchess suggested something with a French literary ring about
it. I hunted back in my mind for the most familiar French
classic that I could take liberties with, and after a little
exercise of memory I turned out the following:-


"Hast thou the pen that once the gardener had?
I have it not; and know, these pears are had.
Oh, larger than the horses of the Prince
Are those the general drives in Kaikobad."


Even that didn't altogether satisfy Irene; I fancy the
geography of it puzzled her. She probably thought Kaikobad
was an unfashionable German spa, where you'd meet matrimonial
bargain-hunters and emergency Servian kings. My temper was
beginning to slip its moorings by that time I look rather
nice when I lose my temper. (I hoped you would say I lose it
very often. I mustn't monopolise the conversation.)