"Oh," said Francesca, coming into the library, "I see you're busy with
your papers. Don't let me disturb you."
"If," I said, "it depended on me I wouldn't. I'd take you at your word
and have you out of the room in two-twos. But you wouldn't like that,
now, would you?"
"I'm afraid I should have to enter a protest. That's right, isn't it?
Protests _are_ things that have to be entered, aren't they?"
"Yes," I said, "they're like candidates for examinations, or rooms, only
some rooms oughtn't to be entered, but are."
"Jocose?" said Francesca.
"No," I said; "I was thinking of Blue Beard. I daresay you remember
about him. He was a very uxorious man, you know, and most domestic.
Something of a traveller, and when"--
"We won't worry about Blue Beard," she said. "I think I know the
outlines of his family history."
"Well then," I said, "why can't you leave me alone? You see I'm busy and
yet you insist on staying here and interrupting me. Do you call that
being a helpmeet?"
"Well," she said, "I call it joining myself unto you, and that's what we
were told to do to one another in the marriage service."
"You're wrong," I said. "I was told to do that unto you, but you were
told to submit yourself unto me and to reverence me."
"It's all the same," she said. "All I'm doing is to help you to obey the
Prayer-Book."
"Anyhow," I said, "you've sat down and you mean to stay here. Is that
what it comes to?"
"It is," she said. "You're in tremendous guessing form to-day."
"All I know," I said gloomily, "is that if my return for Income Tax
contains many mistakes it'll be your fault, not mine; and I shall take
care so to inform the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER. I shall put down in
the Exemptions and Abatements, 'Interrupted by wife. Abatement claimed,
£100.' The CHANCELLOR will understand. He's a married man himself."
"So you're doing your Income Tax," she said dreamily. "I've often
wondered how that was done. Do you like it?"
"No, Francesca," I said, "I do not like it. To be quite frank with you I
detest it."
"But you're helping the War," she said. "That ought to buck you up like
anything. Every extra penny you pay is a smack in the eye for the
KAISER, so cheer up and make a good big return."
"I will do," I said, "what is strictly fair between myself and the
Government. I can afford to be just to the CHANCELLOR, but, by Heaven, I
cannot afford to be generous. Generosity has no place in an Income Tax
return."
"Go ahead with it then," she said. "I don't know what's stopping you."
"You," I said, "are stopping me--you and that part of my income from
which the tax is not deducted at the source."
"That sounds quite poetical," she said. "It runs into metre directly.
Listen:--
No man can well be rude or even coarse
Who has his tax deducted at the source.