"Of course, if you want something really Persian and
passionate, with red wine and bulbuls in it," I went on to
suggest; but she grabbed the book away from me.

"Not for worlds. Nothing with red wine or passion in it.
Dear Agatha gave me the album, and she would be mortified to
the quick" -

I said I didn't believe Agatha had a quick, and we got quite
heated in arguing the matter. Finally, the Duchess declared
I shouldn't write anything nasty in her book, and I said I
wouldn't write anything in her nasty book, so there wasn't a
very wide point of difference between us. For the rest of
the afternoon I pretended to be sulking, but I was really
working back to that quatrain, like a fox-terrier that's
buried a deferred lunch in a private flower-bed. When I got
an opportunity I hunted up Agatha's autograph, which had the
front page all to itself, and, copying her prim handwriting
as well as I could, I inserted above it the following
Thibetan fragment:-


"With Thee, oh, my Beloved, to do a dak
(a dak I believe is a sort of uncomfortable post-journey)
On the pack-saddle of a grunting yak,
With never room for chilling chaperone,
'Twere better than a Panhard in the Park."


That Agatha would get on to a yak in company with a lover