The Sunny Side | Page 7

whatever was of importance. But there was now a new kind of letter to write, and one rather outside the terms of our original understanding. A friend of mine had told his friends the Cardews that we were going out to the Riviera and would let them know when we arrived ... and we had arrived a week ago.
"It isn't at all an easy letter to write," said Myra. "It's practically asking a stranger for hospitality."
"Let us say 'indicating our readiness to accept it.' It sounds better."
Myra smiled slowly to herself.
"'Dear Mrs. Cardew,'" she said, "'we are ready for lunch when you are. Yours sincerely.'"
"Well, that's the idea."
"And then what about the others? If the Cardews are going to be nice we don't want to leave Dahlia and all of them out of it."
I thought it over carefully for a little.
"What you want to do," I said at last, "is to write a really long letter to Mrs. Cardew, acquainting her with all the facts. Keep nothing back from her. I should begin by dwelling on the personnel of our little company. 'My husband and I,' you should say, 'are not alone. We have also with us Mr. and Mrs. Archibald Mannering, a delightful couple. Mr. A. Mannering is something in the Territorials when he is not looking after his estate. His wife is a great favourite in the county. Next I have to introduce to you Mr. Thomas Todd, an agreeable young bachelor. Mr. Thomas Todd is in the Sucking-a-ruler-and-looking-out-of-the-window Department of the Admiralty, by whose exertions, so long as we preserve the 2 Todds to 1 formula--or, excluding Canadian Todds, 16 to 10--Britannia rules the waves. Lastly, there is Mr. Samuel Simpson. Short of sight but warm of heart, and with (on a bad pitch) a nasty break from the off, Mr. S. Simpson is a littérateur of some eminence but little circulation, combining on the cornet intense wind-power with no execution, and on the golf course an endless enthusiasm with only an occasional contact. This, dear Mrs. Cardew, is our little party. I say nothing of my husband.'"
"Go on," smiled Myra. "You have still to explain how we invite ourselves to lunch."
"We don't; we leave that to her. All we do is to give a list of the meals in which, in the ordinary course, we are wont to indulge, together with a few notes on our relative capacities at each. 'Perhaps,' you wind up, 'it is at luncheon time that as a party we show to the best advantage. Some day, my dear Mrs. Cardew, we must all meet at lunch. You will then see that I have exaggerated neither my husband's appetite, nor the light conversation of my brother, nor the power of apology, should any little contretemps occur, of Mr. Samuel Simpson. Let us, I say, meet at lunch. Let us--'" I took out my watch suddenly.
"Come on," I said, getting up and giving a hand to Myra; "we shall only just be in time for it."

V.
THE GAMESTERS
"It's about time," said Simpson one evening, "that we went to the tables and--er--" (he adjusted his spectacles)--"had a little flutter."
We all looked at him in silent admiration.
"Oh, Samuel," sighed Myra, "and I promised your aunt that you shouldn't gamble while you were away."
"But, my dear Myra, it's the first thing the fellows at the club ask you when you've been to the Riviera--if you've had any luck."
"Well, you've had a lot of luck," said Archie. "Several times when you've been standing on the heights and calling attention to the beautiful view below, I've said to myself, 'One push, and he's a deader,' but something, some mysterious agency within, has kept me back."
"All the fellows at the club--"
Simpson is popularly supposed to belong to a Fleet Street Toilet and Hairdressing Club, where for three guineas a year he gets shaved every day, and has his hair cut whenever Myra insists. On the many occasions when he authorizes a startling story of some well-known statesman with the words: "My dear old chap, I know it for a fact. I heard it at the club to-day from a friend of his," then we know that once again the barber's assistant has been gossiping over the lather.
"Do think, Samuel," I interrupted, "how much more splendid if you could be the only man who had seen Monte Carlo without going inside the rooms. And then when the hairdresser--when your friends at the club ask if you've had any luck at the tables, you just say coldly, 'What tables?'"
"Preferably in Latin," said Archie. "Quae mensae?"
But it was obviously no good arguing with him. Besides, we were all keen enough to go.
"We needn't lose," said Myra. "We might win."
"Good idea," said Thomas. He lit his pipe and added, "Simpson was telling me about