A
moonlight hen-stealing raid with the merry-eyed curate would be
infinitely more exciting; imagine the pleasure of carrying off all those
white minorcas that the Chibfords are always bragging about. When we had
disposed of them we could give the proceeds to a charity, so there would
be nothing really wrong about it. But nothing of that sort lies within
the Mappined limits of my life. One of these days somebody dull and
decorous and undistinguished will 'make himself agreeable' to me at a
tennis party, as the saying is, and all the dull old gossips of the
neighbourhood will begin to ask when we are to be engaged, and at last we
shall be engaged, and people will give us butter-dishes and
blotting-cases and framed pictures of young women feeding swans. Hullo,
Uncle, are you going out?"
"I'm just going down to the town," announced Mr. James Gurtleberry, with
an air of some importance: "I want to hear what people are saying about
Albania. Affairs there are beginning to take on a very serious look.
It's my opinion that we haven't seen the worst of things yet."
In this he was probably right, but there was nothing in the immediate or
prospective condition of Albania to warrant Mrs.
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