"I don't mind whether the rats are secular or circular," said Celia, "but do get them in soon."
Well, I tried. I really did try, but for months I couldn't get those rats in. It was a near thing sometimes, and I would think that I had them, but at the last moment they would whisk off and back into their holes again. I even wrote an article about "Cooking in the Great War," feeling that that would surely tempt them, but they were not to be drawn….
CHAPTER IV
But at last the perfect opportunity came. I received a letter from a botanical paper asking for an article on the Flora of Trench Life.
"Horray!" said Celia. "There you are."
I sat down and wrote the article. Working up gradually to the subject of rats, and even more gradually intertwining it, so to speak, with the subject of cats, I brought off in one perfect climax the great Joke.
"Lovely!" said Celia excitedly.
"There is one small point which has occurred to me. Rats are fauna, not flora; I've just remembered."
"Oh, does it matter?"
"For a botanical paper, yes."