The day's play

by A. A. Milne

And so now you see why I am going to call my pedigree goat David.

V

DEAR CHARLES,—I am learning to dance the minuet. I say "the" instead of "a" because I am sure mine is a very particular kind of one. You start off with three slides to the left, then three to the right, and then you stop and waggle the left leg. After that you bow to your partner in acknowledgement of the interest she has taken in it all, and that ends the first figure. There are lots more, but one figure at a time is my motto. At present I slide well, but I am a moderate waggler.

Why am I doing this, you ask. My dear Charles, you never know when a little thing like a minuet will turn out useful. The time may well come when you will say to yourself, "Ah, if only I had seized the opportunity of learning that when I was young, how ... etc." There were once two men who were cast ashore on a desert island. One of them had an axe, and a bag of nails, and a goat, and a box of matches, and a barrel of gunpowder, and a keg of biscuits, and a tarpaulin and some fish-hooks. The other could only dance the minuet. Years rolled by; and one day a ship put in at that island for water. As a matter of fact, there was no water there, but they found two skeletons. Which shows that in certain circumstances proficiency in the minuet is as valuable as an axe, and a bag of nails, and a goat and a box of matches, and all the other things that I mentioned just now. So I am learning in case.

My niece, aged twenty months (do I bore you?), has made her first joke: let it be put on record and handed down to those that come after. She walked into the study, where her father was reading and her mother writing. They agreed not to take any notice of her, in order to see what would happen. She marched up to her father, stroked his face, and said, "Hallo, daddy!" No answer. She gazed round; and then went over to the writing-desk. "Hallo, mummy!" Dead silence. She stood for a moment looking rather puzzled. At last she went back to her father, bent down and patted his slippers and said, "Hallo, boots!" Then she walked quite happily out of the room.

However, we won't bother about her, because I have something much more exciting to tell you. M'Gubbin has signed on for the something Rovers for next season! I saw it in the paper; it had a little paragraph all to itself. This is splendid news—I haven't been so happy about anything for a long time. Whaur's your Wully Gaukrodger now? Let us arrange a Pentathlon for them. I'll back M'G., and you can hold the towel for Gauk. My man would win at football of course, and yours at cricket, but the other three events would be exciting. Chess, golf and the minuet, I think. I can see M'Gubbin sliding—one, two, three, one, two three—there, now he's waggling his left leg. Charles, you're a goner—hand over the stakes.

Look here, I smoke too much, at least I have been lately. Let's give it up, Charles. I'll give it up altogether for a week if you will. Did you know that you can allay the craving for tobacco by the judicious use of bull's-eyes? ("Allay" is the word.) You carry a bag of bull's-eyes with you—I swear this is true, I saw it in the press—and whenever you feel a desire to smoke you just pop a bull's-eye in your mouth. In a little while, they say, your taste for tobacco—and I imagine for everything else—is quite gone. This ought to be more widely known, and then your host would say, "Try one of these bull's-eyes, won't you? I import them direct," and you would reply, "Thanks very much, but I would rather have one of my own, if I may." "Have a bull's-eye, if you like," your partner would say at a dance. Of course, too, they would have special bull's-eye compartments in trains; that would be jolly. But it would ruin the stage. The hero who always lights a cigarette before giving off his best epigram—I don't know what he'd do. You see he couldn't ... well, he'd have to wait such a time.

Why are they called bull's-eyes? I don't believe I've ever seen a bull's-eye really close. If you look a bull in the eye he doesn't go for you. Which eye? He might be a left-handed bull; you'd look at the wrong eye; then where would you be?

The world is too much with me, Charles, but all the same I've just ordered a flannel suit which will make Castle Bumpbrook stare. Sort of purplish; and it makes up very smart, and they can do me two pairs of trousers in it, whatever that means. I should have thought they could have done me as many pairs as I liked to ask for, but it seems not. They only print a limited edition, and then destroy the original plates, so that nobody else can walk about looking like me. I asked the man if he thought it would play croquet well, and he said, yes. By the way, I have learnt some more about croquet since I wrote last. First, then, you can go round in one, if you're frightfully good. I should like to go round in one; I suppose that would be the record? Secondly, if you're wired from all the balls, "so that you can't get a clear shot at every part of any one of them," you go into baulk, and have another turn. This must happen pretty often, because you could never have a clear shot at the back of a ball, unless you went right round the world the other way, and that would be too risky, besides wasting so much time. No, I can see there's a lot to learn in the game, but patience, Charles, patience. I shall go round in one yet.

VI