Celia doesn't seem to realize that I married her with the sole idea of getting free of all this sort of bother. As it is, I nearly die once a year in the attempt to fill up my income-tax form. Any traffic in insurance cards would, my doctor says, be absolutely fatal.
However, something had to be done. Last week I went into a neighbouring post-office in order to send a telegram. The post-office is an annexe of the grocer's where the sardines come from on Jane's cinema evening. Having sent the telegram, I took a sudden desperate resolve. I—I myself—would do something.
"I want," I said bravely, "an insurance stamp."
"Sixpenny or sevenpenny?" said the girl, trying to put me off my balance at the very beginning.
"What's the difference?" I asked. "You needn't say a penny, because that is obvious."
However, she had no wish to be funny.
"Sevenpenny for men-servants, sixpenny for women," she explained.
I wasn't going to give away our domestic arrangements to so near a neighbour.
"Three sixpenny and four sevenpenny," I said casually, flicking the dust off my shoes with a handkerchief. "Tut, tut, I was forgetting Thomas," I added. "Five sevenpenny."
I took the stamps home and showered them on Celia.