Come on, we'd better have another dance before the great moment. I
wonder if TENNYSON ever saw the New Year in at two guineas a head. I
don't expect so. For that matter it's the first time we've done it at
an expensive public "Revel" ourselves; but then this is the first year
we've been absolutely bankrupt. Up till now we've been rather well
off, and have celebrated cheaply at home. Do you realise that this is
our wedding-day? I believe you'd forgotten; women never remember these
things. Yes, it's six years.... Six years. And this is the first year
we've been bankrupt. All the same, as I say, it's the first year we've
come out and had a jolly good supper. Reckless? Yes, I'm afraid we
are. But we've caught it from the Government.... However, to-morrow
we'll start a new cheque-book.

Have you made your resolutions yet? I have. Do you remember this time
last year? You said you'd keep accounts, and I said I wouldn't smoke
so much. And all the year through our resolution has never wavered.
I've got evidence of that. Look at my diary. Here we are:--

_January 1st._--G. started keeping accounts. Gave up smoking.

And here we are again:--

_March 20th._--G. started accounts.

_March 29th._--Knocked off smoking.

That shows it was no mere flash-in-the-pan, doesn't it?

And we _went on_ like that. Look at this:--

_June 6th._--Gave up smoking.

_June 7th._--Only one pipe since yesterday.

_June 30th._--Cut myself down to four pipes a day.

_July 1st-9th._--G. keeping accounts; knocked off smoking.

But I wonder why I kept writing it down. Even in September, you see, I
wasn't taking it for granted:--

_September 29th._--Quarter-Day. Not smoking this quarter. G. began new
system of accounts.

It looks like bragging, doesn't it? But I don't think I can have meant
it that way. Still, it is rather marvellous, when you come to think of
it--here we are, after all these months, twelve of them, and we still
stick doggedly to the same unswerving resolution. Nothing can alter
it. That's what I call tenacity of purpose.

You don't think I'm serious? But I am. I'm just as serious as I was
last year. This year I _shall_ give up smoking. Only I think you ought
to give up your hot-water bottle in sympathy. You won't? No, I know
you won't. You're a slave of the bottle, you see. It doesn't do you
any harm? Oh, yes it does. It makes your backbone flabby, and it makes
you susceptible to colds, and it gives you chilblains, and, a