“You go on, and don’t disturb us, Reggie,” said Agnes, a lean wiry girl, with hair much dishevelled under the excitement of composition. “We are busy preparing verses for the Attar competition prize, the new dentifrice, you know; you may hear mine if you like. I go in for plain and simple fact—‘beauty unadorned’ you see:
‘Carbolic, camphor, chalk are done;
Attar is all and all in one.’”
“Admirable, Aggie. Good solid sense, and no foolish striving after the artistic. And now for yours, Gertie. Being the poetess of the family, you won’t be content with stern simplicity like that. There’s love and lovemaking in yours, I’ll be bound.”
“Well, Reggie, I have tried to add a little romance to it. But somehow or other the teeth don’t seem to lend themselves readily to the genius of poetry:
‘If Attar you had used in time,
Your teeth would have been white—like mine;
But now my love for you is dead:
Another, ’nother girl I’ll wed.’”
“Bravo, Gertie! You’re really brilliant. ‘Time’ rhymes admirably with ‘mine,’ and it’s a stroke of true genius to intensify grief by the simple process of prodelision.”
“I’m glad you like it, Reggie, though I haven’t the faintest notion of what ‘prodelision’ means.”
“And now, Nellie, for yours. I’ve a rooted belief that yours will be the prize-winner. You’ve a clever head on your shoulders, and can make a good guess at what will pay.”
“Well, mine is rather a bold venture, Reggie. I want, you see, to combine the allied arts of painting and poetry. There’s to be a picture of King Attar at the top, launching thunderbolts at a crowd of flying dentists. Off they go in the distance, with their implements of torture in their hands, and at the bottom of the picture these words are written:
‘King Attar and the dentists see;
Choose Attar—and the dentists flee!’