'Could we have the two bits now without waiting for the novel?'
'Oh, certainly, Uncle Jasper.' (I always like to oblige my family when I can). 'The first is the one that everybody remembers: William I., 1066, married Matilda of Flanders, but I have had an expensive education, as daddy often says, so I know, too, that William II., 1087, never married.'
'Dear me,' said my uncle, again with his indulgent-to-the-tame-gorilla look.
Daddy laughed and got up. 'Well, I should think it would be a most interesting book, though how you will work in the two bits of history with the fauna of the South Pole, influenza, and ski-ing passes the comprehension of a mere male thing!'
Then he kissed me for some extraordinary reason and said that he expected I should get to know some other things as I went along, and Uncle Jasper blew his nose violently, and Ross observed that I was a funny little ass. After that we went home.
Father had a choir practice or something after dinner, and Ross said he had to see a man about a dog (he can't possibly want another), so I retired to my own special domain to start my novel.
I was rummaging in my handkerchief box for a pencil when Nannie came in with a ream of sermon paper and a quart bottle of ink, followed by a procession of servants bearing the New English Dictionary as far as the letter T, which Daddy thought might be useful. In the course of the next hour Ross sent up a wet towel and a can marked 'Midnight Oil,' and a note arrived from Uncle Jasper to say that he had omitted to mention that it was better 'to resolutely avoid' split infinitives (whatever they are), and that if I felt bound at times to write of things I didn't know, it was quite a good tip to shove in a quotation from the best authority on the subject, and that his library was at my disposal at any time. He said, too, that he had a spare copy of the Record Interpreter, if it would be of any use.
My uncle's jokes are like that; no ordinary person can see them at all.
But two can play at 'pulling legs,' so I sewed up the legs of my brother's pyjamas, put the wet towel and the can of oil in his bed, and the dictionary in father's, and, having poured the quart of ink in their two water-jugs, I sat down with great contentment to fulfil my life's ambition.
I thought over the subjects on which my knowledge was irrefutable, but a novel inspired by any one of them seemed impossible, and by 10.30 p.m. I was suffering from bad brain fag. Then Nannie came in to brush my hair, so I confided my troubles to her, as I always do.