HULLO, BEDROOM SCENE!
When Elizabeth presented me with my first safety razor we were both extremely hopeful about the future. She, fresh from the influence of a chemist's assistant, was convinced that breakfast would receive my attentions at more nearly its official hour; while I, reading folded eulogies that had nestled mid the dismembered parts of the razor itself, was looking forward to quite ten minutes extra in bed each morning.
Incidentally we were both disappointed.
For some time everything went well. And then the disused razor blades began to collect!
Now, one of the duties of our seventh housemaid (the seventh this year) was to light gas and things in the bedrooms when it became dark. And one evening, when she was groping about with her hands and snatching at things on the dressing-table in the hope of finding matches, she clutched a group of discarded razor-blades by mistake, strewed them and her blood over Elizabeth's best blue carpet, and gave notice the next morning.
"Now, what is to be done?" said Elizabeth next day as she sat on the floor and massaged the blue Axminster. "No housemaid, and a bedroom carpet disguised as a third-rate murder clue."
"Either get a red carpet, or apply for your next housemaid to a Society for Destitute Aristocrats, blue blood guaranteed," I suggested.
Elizabeth left off massaging and gazed searchingly at the murder clue.
"All because you didn't throw away those wretched razor blades," she said. "Hughie, I hate you! Throw them away at once!"
"Unhate me first," I stipulated.
Elizabeth unhated me, ruffling my newly-made hair in the process.
It took but two strides to reach the dressing-table; it was the work of hardly one minute to collect that ever-growing herd of assertive "has beens," and then ... I began to wonder where I was going to throw them.
Where did one generally throw away things? Out of the window?
I turned my head away in horror. Who was I that I should shower razor blades on that passing archdeacon?
The waste-paper basket?
My housemaid's life was too valuable.
The dust-bin?
But there again the dustman might delve; the Employers' Liability Act is a tricky business and I am only insured against my own death—which always seems to me silly.
"Look here," I said, "it's not so easy to throw these things away as you appear to think. Where am I to throw them?"
Elizabeth opened her mouth to suggest places. Then she shut it again without speaking and became thoughtful.
"Yes," she admitted at length, "it is a little difficult. One can't even bury them in the garden in case they should damage the potatoes."
"There," I cried triumphantly—"they've floored you too!"
Elizabeth gathered together her pails and sponges and held out a hand to be helped up.
"Not at all," she said. "All you've got to do is to put them in a cardboard box and make them into a nice parcel, and I'll write a label."
"Now," she said, when she had finished attaching it, "let's take the dogs for a walk, just to the end of the road. This parcel contains things that are dangerous to the public welfare, doesn't it? Very well, then, I shall make sure that it's taken into safe custody by the nearest policeman."
"Look here, Elizabeth," I said firmly, "I'll have nothing to do with your silly ass tricks. If we draw blood from the police——"
"Oh, that'll be all right," she remarked cheerfully as we reached the end of the road. "We shan't wait to explain. Quick! There is a policeman coming! Here's the parcel. Put it down just at the bottom of the letter-box."
As I stooped with it, "He won't get hurt," said Elizabeth. "He'll open it too gingerly to cut himself. He'll think it's a bomb."
"Why?" said I.
And then first I saw the writing on the label. It said, Votes for Women.
"Ole Bill yonder's got a job. Thinks he's goin' to set the Thames on fire."
"Not 'im; 'e takes 'arf a box o' matches to light a Woodbine."
"IPSWICH
ELECTION
RESULT.
Words and Music of
'Don't you mind it, Honey.'"
"Reynolds" poster.
This has cheered Mr. Masterman up a good deal.
"He left to his eldest son to devolve as an heirloom his picture by Velasquez of a girl with a bird on her finger and a boy and a basket of limes and £500 to the Foundling Hospital."—Times.
No doubt the Hospital will be grateful for its three legacies.