hat's seven altogether. Eight, with this. I'm
beginning to get the hang of the thing. Tell me again."

His voice subsided into the incoherent muttering, which immediately
precedes slumber. This was too much. In silence Jonah handed Daphne
his cigarette. By stretching out an arm, as she lay on the sofa, my
sister was just able to apply the burning tobacco to the lobe of her
husband's ear. With a yell the latter flung his feet from the
club-kerb and sat up in his chair. When he turned, Jonah was placidly
smoking in the distance, while Daphne met her victim's accusing eye
with a disdainful stare, her hands empty in her lap. The table, at
which I was writing, shook with Jill's suppressed merriment.

"The stake's upstairs," said Berry bitterly. "Or would you rather
gouge out my eyes? Will you flay me alive? Because if so, I'll go and
get the knives and things. What about after tea? Or would you rather
get it over?"

"You shouldn't be so tiresome," said Daphne. Berry shook his head
sorrowfully.

"Listen," he said. "The noise you hear is not the bath running away.
No, no. My heart is bleeding, sister."

"Better sear that, too," said his wife, reaching for Jonah's cigarette.

It was just then that my eyes, wandering round the library, lighted on
a copy of "Don Quixote." "The very thing," said I suddenly.

"What?" said Jill.

"Berry can go as Sancho Panza."

The others stared at me. Berry turned to his wife.

"You and Jill run along, dear, and pad the boxroom. Jonah and I'll
humour him till you're ready."

"Sancho Panza?" said Daphne. "But we're going to do The Caliph's
Wedding out of the Arabian Nights."

"Let's drop the Eastern touch," I said, getting up from the table.
"It's sure to be overdone. Give them a page of Cervantes instead.
Jonah can be Don Quixote. You'll make a priceless Dorothea in boy's
clothes, with your hair down your back. Jilly can be---- Wait a
minute."

I stepped to the shelf and picked out the old quarto. After a moment's
search:

"Here you are," said I. "Daughter of Don Diego. Sancho Panza strikes
her when he's going the rounds at night. 'She was beautiful as a
thousand pearls, with her hair inclosed under a net of gold and green
silk.' And I can be the Squire of the Wood, complete with false nose."

"I rather like the idea," said Daphne, "only--"

"Wait till I find the description of Dorothea," said I, turning over
the pages. "Here it is. Read that,