"Well, which is it to be?" asked Archie.
"Just whichever you like," said Dahlia, "only make up your minds."
"Well, I can do you a very good line in either. I've got a lot of
sea in the front of the house, and there's the Armadillo straining
at the leash; and I've had some land put down at the back of the
house, and there's the Silent-Knight eating her carburettor off in
the kennels."
"Oh, what can ail thee, Silent-Knight, alone and palely loitering?"
asked Simpson. "Keats," he added kindly.
"Ass (Shakespeare)," I said.
"Of course, if we sailed," Simpson went on eagerly, "and we got
becalmed again, I could teach you chaps signalling."
Archie looked from one to the other of us.
"I think that settles it," he said, and went off to see about the
motor.
"Little Chagford," said Archie, as he slowed down. "Where are we
going to, by the way?"
"I thought we'd just go on until we found a nice place for lunch."
"And then on again till we found a nice place for tea," added Myra.
"And so home to dinner," I concluded.
"Speaking for myself--" began Simpson.
"Oh, why not?"
"I should like to see a church where Katharine of Aragon or somebody
was buried."
"Samuel's morbid craving for sensation--"
"Wait till we get back to London, and I'll take you to Madame
Tussaud's, Mr Simpson."
"Well, I think he's quite right," said Dahlia. "There is an old
Norman church, I believe, and we ought to go and see it. The
Philistines needn't come in if they don't want to."
"Philistines!" I said indignantly. "Well, I'm--"
"Agagged," suggested Archie. "Oh no, he was an Amalekite."
"You've lived in the same country as this famous old Norman church
for years and years and years, and you care so little about it that
you've never been to see it and aren't sure whether it was Katharine
of Aragon or Alice-for-short who was buried here, and now that you
HAVE come across it by accident you want to drive up to it in a
brand-new 1910 motor-car, with Simpson in his 1910 gent.'s fancy
vest knocking out the ashes of his pipe against the lych-gate as he
goes in. ... And that's what it is to be one of the elect!"
"Little Chagford's noted back-chat comedians," commented Archie.
"Your turn, Dahlia."
"There was once a prince who was walking in a forest near his castle
one day--that's how all the nice stories begin--and he suddenly came
across a beautiful maiden, and he said to himself, 'I've lived here
for years and years and years, and I've never seen her before, and
I'm not sure whether her name is Katharine or Alice, or where her
uncle was buried, and I've got a new surcoat on which doesn't match
her wimple at all, so let's leave her and go home to lunch....' And
THAT'S what it is to be one of the elect!"
"Don't go on too long," said Archie. "There are the performing seals
to come after you."