r, we parted.

That ended the Revue; it ended the Trench Scene; and, for the moment, it
ended the Joke.

CHAPTER III

Chapter III finds the war over and Celia still at it.

"You haven't got that Joke in yet."

She had just read an article of mine called "Autumn in a Country
Vicarage."

"It wouldn't go in there very well," I said.

"It would go in anywhere where there were rats. There might easily be
rats in a vicarage."

"Not in this one."

"You talk about 'poor as a church mouse.'"

"I am an artist," I said, thumping my heart and forehead and other seats
of the emotions. "I don't happen to _see_ rats there, and if I don't see
them I can't write about them. Anyhow, they wouldn't be secular rats,
like the ones I made my joke about."

"I don't mind whether the rats are secular or circular," said Celia, "but
do get them in soon."

Well, I tried. I really did try, but for months I couldn't get those rats
in. It was a near thing sometimes, and I would think that I had them,
but at the last moment they would whisk off and back into their holes
again. I even wrote an article about "Cooking in the Great War," feeling
that that would surely tempt them, but they were not to be drawn....

CHAPTER IV

But at last the perfect opportunity came. I received a letter from a
botanical paper asking for an article on the Flora of Trench Life.

"Horray!" said Celia. "There you are."

I sat down and wrote the article. Working up gradually to the subject of
rats, and even more gradually intertwining it, so to speak, with the
subject of cats, I brought off in one perfect climax the great Joke.

"Lovely!" said Celia excitedly.

"There is one small point which has occurred to me. Rats are _fauna_, not
_flora_; I've just remembered."

"Oh, does it matter?"

"For a botanical paper, yes."

And then Celia had a brilliant inspiration.

"Send it to another paper," she said.

I did. Two days later it appeared. Considering that I hadn't had a proof,
it came out extraordinarily well. There was only one misprint. It was at
the critical word of the Joke.

CHAPTER V

"That's torn it," I said to Celia.

"I suppose it has," she said sadly.

"The world will never hear the Joke now. It's had it wrong, but still
it's had it, and I can't repeat it."

Celia began to smile.

"It's sickening," she said; "but it's really rather funny, you know."

And then she had another brilliant inspiration.

"In fact you