Christopher and Columbus | Page 8

God, what troubles a man lets himself in for when he
marries!"
"I do beg you, Arthur, not to use those coarse words," said Aunt Alice,
tears in her gentle eyes.
There followed a period of desperate exertion on the part of Aunt Alice.
She answered advertisements and offered the twins as nursery
governesses, as cheerful companions, as mothers' helps, even as
orphans willing to be adopted. She relinquished every claim on salaries,
she offered them for nothing, and at last she offered them accompanied
by a bonus. "Their mother was English. They are quite English," wrote
Aunt Alice innumerable times in innumerable letters. "I feel bound,
however, to tell you that they once had a German father, but of course
it was through no fault of their own," etc., etc. Aunt Alice's hand ached
with writing letters; and any solution of the problem that might
possibly have been arrived at came to nothing because Anna-Rose

would not be separated from Anna-Felicitas, and if it was difficult to
find anybody who would take on one German nobody at all could be
found to take on two.
Meanwhile Uncle Arthur grew nightly more dreadful in bed. Aunt
Alice was at her wits' end, and took to crying helplessly. The twins
racked their brains to find a way out, quite as anxious to relieve Uncle
Arthur of their presence as he was to be relieved. If only they could be
independent, do something, work, go as housemaids,--anything.
They concocted an anonymous-advertisement and secretly sent it to
The Times, clubbing their pocket-money together to pay for it. The
advertisement was:
Energetic Sisters of belligerent ancestry but unimpeachable Sympathies
wish for any sort of work consistent with respectability. No objection to
being demeaned.
Anna-Felicitas inquired what that last word meant for it was
Anna-Rose's word, and Anna-Rose explained that it meant not minding
things like being housemaids. "Which we don't," said Anna-Rose.
"Upper and Under. I'll be Upper, of course, because I'm the eldest."
Anna-Felicitas suggested putting in what it meant then, for she
regarded it with some doubt, but Anna-Rose, it being her word, liked it,
and explained that it Put a whole sentence into a nut-shell, and wouldn't
change it.
No one answered this advertisement except a society in London for
helping alien enemies in distress.
"Charity," said Anna-Rose, turning up her nose.
"And fancy thinking us enemies," said Anna-Felicitas, "Us. While
mummy--" Her eyes filled with tears. She kept them back, however,
behind convenient long eye-lashes.
Then they saw an advertisement in the front page of The Times that

they instantly answered without saying a word to Aunt Alice. The
advertisement was:
Slightly wounded Officer would be glad to find intelligent and
interesting companion who can drive a 14 h.p. Humber. Emoluments
by arrangement.
"We'll tell him we're intelligent and interesting," said Anna-Rose,
eagerly.
"Yes--who knows if we wouldn't be really, if we were given a chance?"
said Anna-Felicitas, quite flushed with excitement.
"And if he engages us we'll take him on in turns, so that the
emoluments won't have to be doubled."
"Yes--because he mightn't like paying twice over."
"Yes--and while the preliminaries are being settled we could be
learning to drive Uncle Arthur's car."
"Yes--except that it's a Daimler, and aren't they different?"
"Yes--but only about the same difference as there is between a man and
a woman. A man and a woman are both human beings, you know. And
Daimlers and Humbers are both cars."
"I see," said Anna-Felicitas; but she didn't.
They wrote an enthusiastic answer that very day.
The only thing they were in doubt about, they explained toward the end
of the fourth sheet, when they had got to politenesses and were
requesting the slightly wounded officer to allow them to express their
sympathy with his wounds, was that they had not yet had an
opportunity of driving a Humber car, but that this opportunity, of
course, would be instantly provided by his engaging them. Also, would
he kindly tell them if it was a male companion he desired to have,
because if so it was very unfortunate, for neither of them were males,

but quite the contrary.
They got no answer to this for three weeks, and had given up all hope
and come to the depressing conclusion that they must have betrayed
their want of intelligence and interestingness right away, when one day
a letter came from General Headquarters in France, addressed To Both
the Miss Twinklers, and it was a long letter, pages long, from the
slightly wounded officer, telling them he had been patched up again
and sent back to the front, and their answer to his advertisement had
been forwarded to him there, and that he had had heaps of other
answers to it, and that the one he had liked best of