Part 40 (1/2)

Help!

A yellow waistcoat, pink breeches, and--no, it's not an eider-down, it's a coat.

A yellow--Pink br----

I am going as Joseph.

I am going as a humming bird.

I am going--yes, that's it, I am going back to bed.

x.x.xVI. THE COMPLETE KITCHEN

I sat in the drawing-room after dinner with my knees together and my hands in my lap, and waited for the game to be explained to me.

”There's a pencil for you,” said somebody.

”Thank you very much,” I said and put it carefully away. Evidently I had won a forfeit already. It wasn't a very good pencil, though.

”Now, has everybody got pencils?” asked somebody else. ”The game is called 'Furnis.h.i.+ng a Kitchen.' It's quite easy. Will somebody think of a letter?” She turned to me. ”Perhaps _you'd_ better.”

”Certainly,” I said, and I immediately thought very hard of N. These thought-reading games are called different things, but they are all the same, really, and I don't believe in any of them.

”Well?” said everybody.

”What?... Yes, I have. Go on.... Oh, I beg your pardon,” I said in confusion. ”I thought you--N is the letter.”

”N or M?”

I smiled knowingly to myself.

”My G.o.dfather and my G.o.dmother,” I went on cautiously----

”It was N,” interrupted somebody. ”Now then, you've got five minutes in which to write down everything you can beginning with N. Go.” And they all started to write like anything.

I took my pencil out and began to think. I know it sounds an easy game to you now, as you sit at your desk surrounded by dictionaries; but when you are squeezed on to the edge of a sofa, given a very blunt pencil and a thin piece of paper, and challenged to write in five minutes (on your knees) all the words you can think of beginning with a certain letter--well, it is another matter altogether. I thought of no end of things which started with K, or even L; I thought of ”rhinoceros” which is a very long word and starts with R; but as for----

I looked at my watch and groaned. One minute gone.

”I must keep calm,” I said and in a bold hand I wrote _Napoleon_. Then after a moment's thought, I added _Nitro-glycerine_, and _Nats_.

”This is splendid,” I told myself. ”_Nottingham, n.o.body and Noon._ That makes six.”

At six I stuck for two minutes. I did worse than that in fact; for I suddenly remembered that gnats were spelt with a G. However, I decided to leave them, in case n.o.body else remembered. And on the fourth minute I added _Non-sequitur_.

”Time!” said somebody.

”Just a moment,” said everybody. They wrote down another word or two (which isn't fair), and then began to add up. ”I've got thirty,” said one.