up and went to the door.

"I think I see," he said; "and I want my pipe anyhow. So I'll go out
first."

"Now then," said Celia, when the door was safely closed, "what shall we
have?"

Of course you know this game, and you know the difficulty of thinking of
a proverb which has no moss or stable-doors or glasshouses in it; all
of them words which it is impossible to include naturally in an answer to
an ordinary question. The proverbs which Mrs. Herbert suggested were
full of moss.

"What about 'It's never too late to mend?'" said Mrs. Peter. "The only
difficult word is 'mend.'"

"We mustn't have less than seven words, one for each of us."

"Can't we get something from Solomon for a change?" said Peter. "'A
roaring lion is a calamity to its father, but the cautious man cometh
not again.' That sort of thing."

"We might try it," said Celia doubtfully, not feeling quite sure if it
were a real proverb; "but 'cometh' would be difficult."

"I don't see why," said Herbert. "One could always work it in somehow."

"Well, of course, if he asked you, 'By what train cometh thou up in the
mornings?' you could answer, 'I cometh up by the ten-fifteen.' Only you
don't get that sort of question as a rule."

"Oh, I see," said Herbert. "I didn't quite understand."

"After all, its really much more fun having camels and things," said
Celia. "'It's the last straw that breaks the camel's back.' Who'll do
'camels'? You'd better," she added kindly to me.

Everybody but myself seemed to think that this was much more fun.

"I'll do 'straw,'" said Peter generously, whereupon Celia volunteered for
"breaks." There were seven of us for nine words. We gave Mrs. Herbert the
second "the," fearing to trust her with anything more alarming and in
order to keep it in the family we gave the other "the" to Herbert, who
was also responsible for "back." Our hostess had "last" and Mrs. Peter
had "that."

All this being settled, our host was admitted into his smoking-room
again.

"You begin with me," I said, and I was promptly asked, "How many blue
beans make five?" When I had made a suitable answer into which "it's"
came without much difficulty, our host turned to Herbert. Herbert's face
had already assumed a look of strained expectancy.

"Well, Herbert, what do you think of Lloyd George?"

"Yes," said Herbert. "Yes--er--yes." He wiped the perspiration from his
brow. "He--er--that is to say--er--Lloyd George, yes."

"Is that the answer?" s