e are small matters, but they are very trying to a
father."

"Have you any coppers?" asked Myra suddenly. "You forget their
pocket-money last week."

"One, two, three--I cannot possibly afford--one, two, three, four--Myra,
I do wish you'd count them definitely and tell me how many we have. One
likes to know. I cannot afford pocket-money for more than a dozen."

"Ten." She took a franc from me and gave it to the biggest girl.
(Anne-Marie, our first, and getting on so nicely with her French.)
Rapidly she explained what was to be done with it, Anne-Marie's look of
intense rapture slowly straightening itself to one of ordinary gratitude
as the financial standing of the other nine in the business became clear.
Then we waved farewell to our family and went on.

High above the village, a thousand feet above the sea, we rested, and
looked down upon the silvery olives stretching into the blue ... and more
particularly upon one red roof which stood up amid the grey-green trees.

"That's the Cardews' villa," I said.

Myra was silent.

When Myra married me she promised to love, honour and write all my
thank-you-very-much letters for me, for we agreed before the ceremony
that the word "obey" should mean nothing more than that. There are two
sorts of T.Y.V.M. letters--the "Thank you very much for asking us, we
shall be delighted to come," and the "Thank you very much for having us,
we enjoyed it immensely." With these off my mind I could really
concentrate on my work, or my short mashie shots, or whatever was of
importance. But there was now a new kind of letter to write, and one
rather outside the terms of our original understanding. A friend of mine
had told his friends the Cardews that we were going out to the Riviera
and would let them know when we arrived ... and we had arrived a week
ago.

"It isn't at all an easy letter to write," said Myra. "It's practically
asking a stranger for hospitality."

"Let us say 'indicating our readiness to accept it.' It sounds better."

Myra smiled slowly to herself.

"'Dear Mrs. Cardew,'" she said, "'we are ready for lunch when you are.
Yours sincerely.'"

"Well, that's the idea."

"And then what about the others? If the Cardews are going to be nice we
don't want to leave Dahlia and all of them out of it."

I thought it over carefully for a little.

"What you want to do," I said at last, "is to write a really long letter
to Mrs. Cardew, acquainting her with all the facts. Keep