The day's play

by A. A. Milne

She was a very heavy woman.... No, Peter wasn't hurt much; but she refused to have him in the kitchen again.

This is a very zoological letter, but I just wanted to show you that you weren't the only one. Time fails me to tell you of a mole which we put in the geranium-bed, of a certain kind of caterpillar from which we caught nettlerash, of a particularly handsome triton which we kept in a tank with a crab, giving them fresh and salt water on alternative days, so that there should be no quarrelling. It is enough if I have made it clear that one does not need to have Castle Bumpbrook on one's notepaper in order to commune with nature.

I want two wedding presents—I don't mean for myself. What do you suggest? I bar anything for the table. Newly married couples might do nothing but eat to judge from the things they get given them. At present I hesitate between the useful—as, for instance, twenty thousand cubic feet of gas—and the purely ornamental—say, an antimacassar. "Mr and Mrs Samuel Jones—a towel-horse": you never see that, do you? And yet you could pay anything for a pure-bred one, and they are very useful. The bride always wears "valuable old Honiton lace, the gift of her aunt." Otherwise it's not legal. Kitty never had an aunt, had she? Then you aren't properly married, Charles. I'm sorry.

VIII

DEAR CHARLES,—A thing has just happened to me, which really only happens to people in jokes. You would not believe it did I not lay my hand on my heart—(the heart isn't on the left side, as you thought, by the way. It's bang in the middle, only the left auricle does all the work. However)—on my heart, and swear that it is true.

I was in the silver department of Liberty's buying some spoons. Yes, I fell back on spoons after all. (Never fall back on a spoon, Charles, if you can help it.) It was a hot day and the business of selection was so exhausting that I took off my hat and gloves, and laid them on a chair beside me. When it was all over the man went off to make out the bill. I wandered round the place, looking at all the other things which I wished I had bought instead. Suddenly a voice at my side said:

"Can you tell me if this is where you get ladies' jerseys for golf?"

(I told you you had to get a jersey for golf.)

I said: "Oh, do you think that is a good thing? I rather thought of spoons myself.... I mean, for a wedding present one does want something which ... Oh, I beg your pardon.... Yes, I am Mr Liberty. No liberty at all, madam, I assure you.... This is the silver department, you know.... Yes, all that white shiny stuff.... Well, I daresay we could do you one, if you wouldn't mind having the lion worked on it.... No, we don't charge for the lion.... Or what about something quite simple in pewter.... Oh, I see.... The art muslin department would be the nearest thing we have ... a freer swing, certainly.... Good-morning."

Well, no, I didn't say that exactly. Having my hand on the left side of my heart it would be impossible to pretend that I did. With the best intentions in the world, how easy it is, Lucy, to slip from the rocky path of truth into the crevasse of make-believe. (Maxim from "The Fairchild Family.") But really and really, Charles, she did take me for the shopwalker in the silver department, and she did ask for ladies' golf jerseys. What I actually said was: "I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid I'm only a customer." And she said, "Oh, I'm so sorry." And then I put on my hat to show that I had one, and took it off again to show that I knew my manners, and she went off to the clock counter, and said she was sorry to trouble the man behind it, but could he tell her where she went for ladies' jerseys for golf, and he said he was very sorry, they didn't sell them, but would she like some clocks on her stockings instead. Altogether there was a good deal of sorrow going about.