"Being actually on the spot," I said, "I knew that I hadn't."
"Do try again."
"Not till the ground's a little softer."
"Let's do the jam-pot trick," said another girl.
"I'm not going under a jam-pot for anybody," I murmured.
However, it turned out that this trick was quite different. You place a book (Macaulay's Essays or what not) on the jam-pot and sit on the book, one heel only touching the ground. In the right hand you have a box of matches, in the left a candle. The jam-pot, of course, is on its side, so that it can roll beneath you. Then you light the candle ... and hand it to anybody who wants to go to bed.
I was ready to give way to the ladies here, but even while I was bowing and saying, "Not at all," I found myself on one of the jam-pots with Bob next to me on another. To balance with the arms outstretched was not so difficult; but as the matches were then about six feet from the candle and there seemed no way of getting them nearer together the solution of the problem was as remote as ever. Three times I brought my hands together, and three times the jam-pot left me.
"Well played, Bob," said somebody. The bounder has done it.
"There you are," I said. "'Raspberry—1909.' Mine's 'Gooseberry—1911,' a rotten vintage. And look at my book, Alone on the Prairie; and you've got The Mormon's Wedding. No wonder I couldn't do it."