ou?"

"Yes, but I want a dormouse."

"Oh, but that wouldn't be legal," I said. "That would be a
misappropriation of trust funds."

"What's that?" said Jane.

"Well," I said, "don't you see that the money's given to endow your
camera, and must be spent on that camera and nothing else?"

"But there's nothing more to get for it," urged Jane.

"Then the money must accumulate interest until there is," I said.

Women have no heads for the law. I could not make Jane see that to buy a
dormouse with the funds of the camera would be an irregular and
punishable proceeding. Finally, in despair, I had to promise to ask her
uncle if he would recognise the application of one quarter's payment to
the purchase of a dormouse. He acceded to the somewhat unusual request
with his customary good-nature.

"But remember," I told Jane, "the next instalment must be spent on the
camera."

Slowly but surely, however, the camera fell into disuse. I was asked
more rarely, and more rarely still, to look through prints. At last I
was asked no more.

Then the third instalment arrived.

"You want some more paper and things by now, I suppose?" I said
encouragingly.

"The light hasn't been good lately," said Jane evasively. "I've not been
taking many photos."

"Then what are you going to do with the money?"

"Ask Uncle if I may buy a stamp-album."

* * * * *

Shortly after this, Jane's uncle's birthday came round. I passed a shop
in the City which had recently had a fire. Five hundred silver
cigarette-cases had been pluckily rescued from the flames and, to
celebrate their escape, were being offered for sale at a remarkably low
figure. One of these survivors was dispatched to Jane's uncle.

He dined with us the next evening, and was more grateful than I could
reasonably expect. He handled the cigarette-case quite fondly.

"But what about its endowment?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" I said.

"Well, isn't a cigarette-case as eligible as a camera?" he said. "Its
needs are, I consider, even greater. Presumably this gift is meant to
facilitate my smoking, but an empty cigarette-case offers me nothing to
smoke--it implies the heavy responsibility on an already overburdened
man of keeping it filled. Now, suppose you complete the gift, as I did
Jane's, by at least a year's endowment?"

I began to wish that the cigarette-cases had perished, but after his
kindness to Jane I could hardly refuse.

"Well, w