"No, no, my lord. You take precedence. Go ahead."
He snuggled down with a chuckle into his arm-chair.
"Well!" said Wimsey. "Mine's a sort of a fairy-story. And, mind you, I haven't verified it."
"Go ahead, my lord, go ahead."
"Once upon a time——" said Wimsey, sighing.
"That's the good old-fashioned way to begin a fairy-story," said Inspector Winterbottom.
"Once upon a time," repeated Wimsey, "there was a painter. He was a good painter, but the bad fairy of Financial Success had not been asked to his christening—what?"
"That's often the way with painters," agreed the inspector.
"So he had to take up a job as a commercial artist, because nobody would buy his pictures and, like so many people in fairy-tales, he wanted to marry a goose-girl."
"There's many people want to do the same," said the inspector.