Berry addressed himself to Adele.

“We live in pleasant times, do not we?  Almost a golden age.  I wonder what the trouble is now.  Probably some absent-minded blanchisseuse has gone and ironed twenty socks in ten minutes instead of ten socks in twenty minutes, without thinking.  And the management refuse to sack her for this grievous lapse into the slough of pre-War Industry, out of which a provident Trade Union has blackmailed her to climb.”

“I’ve no doubt you’re right,” said I.  “The question is, where are we going to end?  It’s the same everywhere.  And the mere thought of Income Tax sends my temperature up.”

“Ah,” said Berry.  “I had a quiet hour with the Book of the Words, issued by that Fun Palace, Somerset House, this afternoon. Income Tax, and How to Pay it. Commonly styled, with unconscious humour, The Income Tax Return.  By the time I was through I had made out that, if I render a statement according to the printed instructions, my tax will exceed my income by one hundred and forty-four pounds.  If, on the other hand, I make an incorrect return, I shall be fined fifty pounds and treble the tax payable.  You really don’t get a look in.”

“If you say much more,” groaned Jonah, “you’ll spoil my appetite.  When I reflect that in 1913 and a burst of piety I sent the Chancellor of the Exchequer a postal order for eight and sixpence by way of Conscience Money, I feel positively sick.”

“Not piety,” corrected my brother-in-law.  “Drink.  I remember you had some very bad goes about then.”

“What a terrible memory you have!” said Adele.  “I feel quite uneasy.”

“Fear not, sweet one,” was the reply.  “Before I retail your indiscretions I shall send you a list of them, with the price of omission clearly marked against each in red ink.  The writing will be all blurred with my tears.”  Here Adele declined a second vegetable.  “There, now.  I’ve gone and frightened you.  And marrow’s wonderful for the spine.  Affords instant relief.  And you needn’t eat the seeds.  Spit them over your left shoulder.  That’ll bring you luck.”

There was an outraged clamour of feminine protest.

“I won’t have it,” said Daphne.  “Disgusting brute!”

“And that,” said Jonah, “is the sodden mountebank who dares to cast a stone into the limpid pool of my character.  That is the overfed sluggard——­”

“Take this down, somebody,” said Berry.  “The words’ll scorch up the paper, but never mind.  Record the blasphemy.  Capital ‘M’ for ‘mountebank.’  ‘Sluggard’ with an ‘H.’  And I’m not overfed.”

“You’re getting fatter every day,” said Jill, gurgling.

“That’s right,” said my brother-in-law.  “Bay the old lion.  And bring down these grey hairs in——­”

“Talking of mountebanks,” said I, “who’s going to Fallow Hill Fair?”

“Adele ought to see it,” said Daphne.  “Why don’t you run her over in the car?”