to be the mother of your children.

_Maj._: I wasn't going to wait while you were founding and fostering
dynasties in other directions. Why you couldn't be content to have
children of your own, without collecting them like batches of postage
stamps I can't think. The idea of marrying a man with four children!

_Em._: Well, you're asking me to marry one with five.

_Maj._: Five! (Springing to his feet) Did I say five?

_Em._: You certainly said five.

_Maj._: Oh, Emily, supposing I've miscounted them! Listen now, keep
count with me. Richard--that's after me, of course.

_Em._: One.

_Maj._: Albert-Victor--that must have been in Coronation year.

_Em._: Two!

_Maj._: Maud. She's called after--

_Em._: Never mind who's she's called after. Three!

_Maj._: And Gerald.

_Em._: Four!

_Maj._: That's the lot.

_Em._: Are you sure?

_Maj._: I swear that's the lot. I must have counted Albert-Victor as
two.

_Em._: Richard!

_Maj._: Emily!

(They embrace.)

THE MOUSE

Theodoric Voler had been brought up, from infancy to the confines of
middle age, by a fond mother whose chief solicitude had been to keep him
screened from what she called the coarser realities of life. When she
died she left Theodoric alone in a world that was as real as ever, and a
good deal coarser than he considered it had any need to be. To a man of
his temperament and upbringing even a simple railway journey was crammed
with petty annoyances and minor discords, and as he settled himself down
in a second-class compartment one September morning he was conscious of
ruffled feelings and general mental discomposure. He had been staying at
a country vicarage, the inmates of which had been certainly neither
brutal nor bacchanalian, but their supervision of the domestic
establishment had been of that lax order which invites disaster. The
pony carriage that was to take him to the station had never been properly
ordered, and when the moment for his departure drew near the handy-man
who should have produced the required article was nowhere to be found.
In this emergency Theodoric, to his mute but very intense disgust, found
himself obliged to collaborate with the vicar's daughter in the task of
harnessing the pony, which necessitated groping about in an ill-lighted
outhouse called a stable, and smelling very like one--except in patches
where it smelt of mice. Without being actually afraid of mic