Edward's eye met mine. The result of Etta's last call was that Edward spent
a vivid afternoon got up as Father Christmas in a red dressing-gown and
cotton-wool whiskers, which caught fire and singed his home-grown articles,
small boys at the same time pinching his legs to see if he was real, while
I put in some sultry hours under a hearthrug playing the benevolent
polar-bear to a crowd of small girls who hunted me with fire-irons.
"What is it this time?" I asked.
"A jumble sale," said Aunt Angela.
"What's that?"
"A scheme by which the bucolic English exchange garbage," Edward explained.
"Oh, well, that has nothing to do with us, thank goodness."
He returned to his book, a romance entitled _Gertie, or Should She Have
Done It?_ Edward, I should explain, is a philosopher by trade, but he
beguiles his hours of ease with works of fiction borrowed from the cook.
Aunt Angela was of a different opinion. "Oh, yes, it has: both of you are
gradually filling the house up with accumulated rubbish. If you don't
surrender most of it for Etta's sale there'll be a raid."
My eye met Edward's. We walked out into the hall.
"We'll have to give Angela something or she'll tidy us," he groaned.
"These orderly people are a curse," I protested. "They have no
consideration for others. Look at me; I am naturally disorderly, but I
don't run round and untidy people's houses for them."
Edward nodded. "I know; I know it's all wrong, of course; we should make a
stand. Still, if we can buy Angela off, I think ... you understand?..." And
he ambled off to his muck-room.
If anybody in this neighbourhood has anything that is both an eyesore and
an encumbrance they bestow it on Edward for his muck-room, where he stores
it against an impossible contingency. I trotted upstairs to my bedroom and
routed about among my _Lares et Penates_. I have many articles which,
though of no intrinsic value, are bound to me by strong ties of sentiment;
little old bits of things--you know how it is. After twenty minutes'
heart-and-drawer-searching I decided to sacrifice a policeman's helmet and
a sock, the upper of which had outlasted the toe and heel. I bore these
downstairs and laid them at Aunt Angela's feet.
"What's this?" said she, stirring the helmet disdainfully with her toe.
"Relic of the Great War. The Crown Prince used to wear it in wet weather to
keep the crown dry."