ght us into this fix."

"I?" she said with an air of wonder. "How can I have done that?"

"I'll tell you," I said firmly, for I saw that my chance had come. "For
weeks and weeks past you have been engaged in shutting up avenues and
closing loop-holes. Wherever there was the tiniest way of escape from
the seaside, there you were with your walls and your fences, until at
last you'd got me safely penned in."

"You didn't struggle much, did you?"

"No, I was like the man in _The Pit and the Pendulum_, and you
were--whoever it was that made the walls close in on him."

"I refuse," she said, "to be called a Spanish Inquisition."

"You may refuse as much as you like, but that's the sort of thing you've
been. How you worked on my domestic affections and my household pride!
When Helen forgot to go to her music-lesson you said the poor child was
evidently run down and wanted a breath of sea-air. When Rosie lost her
German exercise-book, and when Peggy fell off her bicycle, you worked
both these accidents round into an imperative demand for salt water.
When John was bitten by a gnat you said the spot was bilious and things
would never be right with him until he got into a more bracing climate;
and when Bates tripped up in the pantry and broke a week's income in
plates and dishes you said he needed tone and would get it at the sea.
Seaside, seaside, seaside! I couldn't get away from it."

"Oh, but you haven't been there yet, you know. You're shouting before
you're hurt."

"No," I said, "I am not--I mean I am hurt, but I'm not shouting. I'm
just whispering a few salutary truths."

"And there's another thing," she said; "it must be terrible for you to
know what a designing person your wife is."

"Madam," I said, "my wife is as heaven made her. I will not permit her
to be abused. She has good impulses. She means well. Her plain sewing is
quite excellent."

"Spare me," she said, "oh spare me. I will never go to the sea again."

"But you _shall_ go to the sea," I said. "Everything is settled. The
agreement is signed; the tickets are all but taken. John and Peggy are
panting for pails and spades. Do you think I want to stand in the way of
their innocent pleasures? We will all try for shrimps while you sit on a
heap of sand and tell us not to get too wet, or that it's time for tea,
and have I forgotten the thermos-flask again."

"Horatio," she said, "I can see you paddling in my mind's eye."

"But tell me," I said, "when d