"Well?" said everybody.
"What? ... Yes, I have. Go on.... Oh, I beg your pardon," I said in confusion. I thought you—— N. is the letter."
"N or M?"
I smiled knowingly to myself.
"My godfather and my godmother," I went on cautiously——
"It was N," interrupted somebody. "Now then, you've got five minutes in which to write down everything you can beginning with N. Go." And they all started to write like anything.
I took my pencil out and began to think. I know it sounds an easy game to you now, as you sit at your desk surrounded by dictionaries; but when you are squeezed on to the edge of a sofa, given a very blunt pencil and a thin piece of paper, and challenged to write in five minutes (on your knees) all the words you can think of beginning with a certain letter—well, it is another matter altogether. I thought of no end of things which started with K, or even L; I thought of "rhinoceros," which is a very long word and starts with R; but as for——
I looked at my watch and groaned. One minute gone.
"I must keep calm," I said, and in a bold hand I wrote Napoleon. Then, after a moment's thought, I added Nitro-glycerine, and Nats.
"This is splendid," I told myself. "Notting Hill, Nobody and Noon. That makes six."