The day's play

by A. A. Milne

I used to have thirty pairs of old white gloves in a drawer. I would take them out sometimes, and stroke them affectionately, and say, "Ah, yes, those were the ones I wore at that absolutely ripping dance when I first met Cynthia, and we had supper together. You can see where I spilt the ice pudding." Or—"This was that Hunt Ball, when I knew nobody and danced with Hildegarde all the time. She wore black; just look at them now." Well, Beatrice had that drawer out pretty quick. And now they are on their way to Perth or Paris, or wherever it is; except Hildegarde's pair, which will just do for the girl when she cleans the grates. I expect she really will get them you know; because John doesn't dance.

You know, you mustn't make too much fun of Beatrice; she has ripping ideas sometimes. She filled a "summer-trunk" for me—a trunk full of all the clothes I am going to want in the summer. She started with a tennis-racquet (which, strictly speaking, isn't clothes at all), and went on with some of the jolliest light waistcoats you ever saw; it made me quite hot to look at them. Well, now, that's really a good idea so far as it goes. But what will happen when the summer does come? Why, we shall have to go through the whole business all over again. And who'll arrange the winter-trunk? Beatrice. And who'll get the pink pyjamas and the green socks that there's really no room for, dear? Why, John.

Yet I am sorry for John. He was once as I am. What a life is his now. Beatrice is a dear, and I will allow no one to say a word against her, but she doesn't understand that trousers must be folded, not hung; that a collar which has once been a collar can never be opened out and turned into a cuff (supposing one wore cuffs); and that a school eleven blazer, even if it happens to be pink, must not be cut down into a dressing-jacket for the little one. Poor John! Yes, I am glad now that he has that shirt of mine. It is perhaps a little too bright for his complexion, perhaps he has not quite the air to carry it off; but I am glad that it is his. Now I think of it I have a tie and a pair of socks that would go well with it; and even William—can I part with William?—yes, he shall have William. Oh, I see that I must be kind to John.

Dear Beatrice! I wonder when I shall have everything straight again.

MEDES AND PERSIANS

I have already said that I am not afraid of my housekeeper, so there is no need for me to say it again. There are other motives than fear which prevent a man from arguing with housekeepers; dislike of conversation with his intellectual inferiors may be one, the sporting instinct is certainly another. If one is to play "Medes and Persians" properly, one must be a sportsman about it. Of course, I could say right out to her "Do this," and she might do it. Or she could say right out to me, "Do that," and I would reply, "Don't be absurd." But that wouldn't be the game.

As I play it, a "Mede" is a law which she lays down, and to which (after many a struggle) in the end I submit; a "Persian" is a law which I lay down, and to which ... after many a struggle ... in the end ... (when it is too late).... Well, there are many Medes, but so far I have only scored one Persian of note.

The first Mede was established last winter. For many weeks I had opened my bedroom door of a morning to find a small jug of cold water on the mat outside. The thing puzzled me. What do I want with a small jug of cold water, I asked myself, when I have quite enough in the bath as it is? Various happy thoughts occurred to me—as that it was lucky, that it collected the germs, or (who knows?) indicated a wife with five thousand a year—but it was a month before the real solution flashed across my mind. "Perhaps," I said, "it was hot once. But," I added, "it must have been a long time ago."

The discovery upset me a good deal. In the first place, it is annoying suddenly to have all one's hopes of a rich wife and protection from disease dashed to the ground; in the second, I object to anybody but a relation interfering with my moral character. Here was a comparative stranger trying to instil the habit of early rising into me by leaving shaving-water outside the door at three A.M. Was this a thing to be taken lying down?