Mr. Bunting would not have liked
it at all. We were serious. We did try to live up to our ideals, and
some of our members actually succeeded in living beyond their incomes.
Our principal recreation was pencil-games, mostly of our own invention.

In this connection I have rather a sad incident to relate. On one
occasion we had a competition to see which of us could write the
flattest and least pointed epigram in rhyme. The prize for men consisted
of two out-size Havannah cigars, formerly the property of Lord
Baringstoke, kindly presented by Mr. Bunting.

Percy Binder, first footman to the Earl of Dilwater, was extremely
anxious to secure this prize. He took as the subject of his epigram the
sudden death of a man on rising from prayer. This was in such lamentably
bad taste that he did not win the prize, but otherwise it would have
certainly been his. His four lines could not have been surpassed for
clumsy and laboured imbecility. The last two ran:

"But when for aid he ceased to beg,
The wily devil broke his leg."

And then came a terrible discovery. Percy Binder had stolen these lines
from the autobiography of my own G.E. She says, by the way, that their
author was "the last of the wits." But how can you be last in a race in
which you never start? It is always safe to say what you think, but
sometimes dangerous to give your reasons for thinking it.

That, however, is a digression. Percy Binder was given to understand
that we did not know him in future. Mr. Bunting was so upset that he
declared the competition cancelled, and smoked the prize himself. He
said afterwards that what annoyed him most was the foolishness of Mr.
Binder's idea that his plagiarism would be undetected.

"He is," said Mr. Bunting, "like the silly ostrich that lays its eggs
in the sand in order to escape the vigilance of its pursuers."

One of our pencil-games was known as Inverted Conundrums, and played as
follows. One person gave the answer to a riddle, and mentioned one word
to be used in the question. The rest then had to write down what they
thought the question would be. The deafness of dear Violet Orpington
sometimes spoiled this game.

For instance, I had once given as an answer "bee-hive," and said that
one word in the question was "correct."

The first question I read out was from George Leghorn. He had written:
"If a cockney nurse wished to correct a child, what insect-home would
she name?" This was accepted.

The ne