"I can't bear it!" he roared. "I can't bear it! I won't. It's insufferable. I've parted with the savings of a lifetime for a whole roomful of luxuries, not one of which, in the ordinary way, we should have dreamed of purchasing, not one of which we require, to not one of which, had you seen it in a shop, you would have given a second thought, all of which are probably spurious——"
"Shame!" cried Jill.
"——only to be told that I've still got to prosecute the mutually revolting acquaintance with infuriated shopkeepers forced upon me this morning. It's cruelty to animals, and I shall write to the Y.M.C.A. Besides, it's more blessed——"
"I can't help it," said Daphne. "The man had absolutely nothing that would have done for anybody. If——"
"One second," said her husband. "I haven't parsed that sentence yet.
And what d'you mean by 'done for'? Because——"
"If," Daphne continued doggedly, "we sent one of those rugs to someone for Christmas, they'd think we'd gone mad."
Berry sighed.
"I'm not sure we haven't," he said. "Any way—" he nodded at Jonah and myself—"I'll trouble each of you gents for a cheque for sixty pounds. As it is, I shall have to give up paying my tailor again, and what with Lent coming on…" Wearily he rose to his feet. "And now I'm going to have a good healthy cry. Globules the size of pigeons' eggs will well from my orbs."
"I know," said Jill. "These things can be our Christmas presents to one another."
Berry laughed hysterically.