"Don't be rough with me or I shall cry. I've got an awful cold."
"Then you've no business to go as Julius Cæsar."
"I say, now you're trying to unsettle me. And I was going to-morrow to order the clothes."
"What! You haven't——"
"I was really going this afternoon, only—only it's early closing day. Besides, I wanted to see if my cold would get better. Because if it didn't—— Look here, I'll be frank with you. I am going as Charlemagne."
"Oh!"
"Charlemagne in half-mourning, because Pepin the Short had just died. Something quiet in grey, with a stripe I thought. Only half-mourning because he only got half the throne. By-the-way, I suppose all these people wore pumps and white kid gloves all right? Yes, I thought so. I wonder if Charlemagne really had black hair. Anyhow, they can't prove he didn't, seeing when he lived. He flourished about 770, you know. As a matter of fact 770 wasn't actually his most flourishing year because the Radicals were in power then and land went down so. Now 771—Yes. Or else as Winston Churchill.
"Anyhow," I added indignantly a minute later, "I swear I'm going somehow."
"Hallo," I said cheerfully, as I ran into Her Majesty in Piccadilly, "I've just been ordering—that is to say, I've been going—I mean I'm just going to—— Let's see, it's next week, isn't it?"