A MODERN CHRONICLE

By Winston Churchill


Volume 4.



CHAPTER VII

OF CERTAIN DELICATE MATTERS

In the religious cult of Gad and Meni, practised with such enthusiasm at
Quicksands, the Saints' days were polo days, and the chief of all
festivals the occasion of the match with the Banbury Hunt Club
--Quicksands's greatest rival. Rival for more reasons than one, reasons
too delicate to tell. Long, long ago there appeared in Punch a cartoon of
Lord Beaconsfield executing that most difficult of performances, an egg
dance. We shall be fortunate indeed if we get to the end of this chapter
without breaking an egg!

Our pen fails us in a description of that festival of festivals, the
Banbury one, which took place early in September. We should have to go
back to Babylon and the days of King Nebuchadnezzar. (Who turns out to
have been only a regent, by the way, and his name is now said to be
spelled rezzar). How give an idea of the libations poured out to Gad and
the shekels laid aside for Meni in the Quicksands Temple?

Honora privately thought that building ugly, and it reminded her of a