"That'll do. Sit down. Ellen Smith, I want you to say the first verse of Wordsworth's Ode to the Imitations of Immorality."
"P-Please, sir," tittered Gladys, "the inspector's laughin' like onything!"
I laughed immoderately, but it wasn't at Janet's malapropism that I laughed so much. I thought of Mrs. Wilks, the charwoman, who looked after the flat another man and I shared in Croydon. One morning she did not arrive to make the breakfast, and I went out to look for her. I found the old woman—she was sixty-three—standing at the foot of the stairs weeping.
"Great Scot!" I cried, "what's the matter?"
"My 'usband ain't goin' to allow me to char for you young gentlemen again."
"What for?" I asked in amazement.
"He ... he accuses me of 'avin' immortal relations wiv you," she sobbed.
I hasten to add that her relations with us were not immortal: we sacked her a week later for pinching the cream.
"Sorry, Janet," I said at length, "proceed with your Imitations of Immorality, although personally I don't see the need for them; the real thing's good enough for me."
"Now," she said, "I'll be Mister Neill now."