I notice that both Boodels and Milburd catch at this idea. From which I
fancy, knowing from experience Boodels' turn for poetry, that they have
got, ready for production, what they will call, "little things of their
own that they've just knocked off."

Almost wish I hadn't suggested it. But if they've got something to act,
_so have I_. If they do _theirs_, they must let mine be done.

Settled, that it is to be a theatre.

Odd that no one part of the house seems finished. Saxons started it;
Normans got tired of it; Tudors touched it up; Annians added to it.

_Happy Thought._--(_Alliterative, on the plan of "A was an Apple pie."_)

Saxons started it:
Normans nurtured it:
Tudors touched it up:
Annians added to it;
Georgians joiced it:
Victorians vamped it.

"Joice," I explain, is a term derived from building; "to joice, _i. e._
to make joices to the floors." Chilvern says, "Pooh!" To "vamp" is
equal, in musical language, to "scamp" or to dodge up. The last owner
evidently has done this.

_Happy Thought._--Good name for a Spanish speculative builder--Don Vampa
di Scampo. Evidently an architect of _Chateaux d'Espagne_.

We visit the stables. The gates are magnificent, two lions sit on their
tails, and guard shields on two huge pillars. After this effort, the
owner seems to have got tired of the place and left it.

We notice this of every room, of various doors, of many windows.

[Illustration: DON VAMPA DI SCAMPO IN AN ARCHITECTURAL OPERA.]

Successive tenants have commenced with great ideas, which have, so to
speak, vanished in perspective.

Boodels becomes melancholy. He says, "I should call this 'The House of
Good Intentions.'"

I point out that these we are going to perfect and utilise.

A brilliant idea strikes me. I say--

_Happy Thought._--Let us call it, "Happy-Thought Hall." I add that this
will look well on the top of note-paper.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI.

CHOOSING A PARTY.

ROOMS--DECISION--ODD MEN--RETURN--ARRANGEMENTS--THEORIES--OBJECTION
--PROPOSITIONS--ELECTIONS--THE LADIES--WHO'S HOST?--GUESTS--HOSTESS
--MORE PROPOSALS--GRANDMOTHERS--AUNTS--HALFSISTERS--SISTERHOOD
PROPOSED--GRAND IDEA--CHAPERONS--TERMS--IDEAL--A PROFESSION--A
DEFECT--OR ADVANTAGE--ADDITIONAL ATTRACTIONS--OLD MAN--DULNESS--
THEATRICAL--PLANS--THE PRESIDENT--EXPLANATION--IDEA.

There are, it appears, sixteen bed-rooms in the