Page:Punch (Volume 147).pdf/102

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" well," said the lady of the house, "don't let's do it. Nobody can force us to go to the seaside if we don't want to."

"It's too late," I said, "to begin to agree with me now."

"It's never too late to realise how reasonable you are."

"Yes, it is. The agreement is signed; half the rent has been paid; Sandstone House has got us by the legs, and, whether we like it or not, we've got to go there next week."

"We might try the effect of a death-bed repentance."

"No," I said, "we're dead already. We died when the blessed agreement was signed."

"Well, then, let's write and say our aunt from British Columbia is about to arrive here unexpectedly on a visit to us, and that sand and seaweed and prawns and star-fish are simply death to her. We can wind up with a strong appeal to the landlord's better nature. No true landlord can wish to be responsible for the death of anybody's British Columbian aunt."

"You're quite wrong," I said. Landlords just revel in that kind of thing. Besides, he will not believe in our aunt. He will say that she is too thin."

"But the aunt I 'm thinking of is stout and wheezy. She is a widow; her name is Aunt Wilhelmina; except ourselves there's nobody in the world left for her to cling to. No marine landlord can dare to separate us from Aunt Wilhelmina."

"It's no good," I said. "I'll admit that your Aunt Wilhelmine"

"She's only mine by marriage, you know; but I love her like a daughter."

"I admit," I continued, "that Aunt-by-marriage Wilhelmina may some day be useful to us. We will put her by for another occasion. But she can't help us now."

"Well, go ahead yourself and suggest something, then."

"I could suggest a thousand things. Suppose we just pay the rest of the rent and don't go."

"The man," she said with conviction, "is mad."

"I thought you'd say that, and I know you'd say the same about any other suggestion of mine, so I shan't make any more."

"You mustn't be sulky," she said.

"I never am. I'm reasonable, but, as usual, you'll realise it too late. Besides," I added, "it's you who've brought 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 your 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 do we start."

"We start on Tuesday. The whole lot of us together, you know, servants and all. Won't that be fun?"

"Ye—es," I said, "it will—I mean it would if I could go with you, but unfortunately"

"What!" she said, "you mean to desert us?"

"No, no, I can never desert you, but I've got two solemn engagements on Tuesday—meetings in the City."

"Then I'm to take the whole party, am I?"

"Yes, dear," I said. "And I'll join you next day."

"You've won," she said.

 

