We made no attempt to eat any of the second course, but put two large slices of steak, two potatoes, and a big spoonful of perspiring cauliflower into the fire. Pieces of ginger-pudding followed it to the burning ghaut, and soon the door again opened, and coffee was brought in. This was an after-thought, I fancy, though ill-inspired and gritty. But there was a coal-scuttle.
I am afraid we both relapsed again after lunch, though for a time the shining example of the housemaid who had done the work of everybody else inspired us to attempt to play piquet, bezique, and the piano. But these were all hopeless: it did not seem worth while dealing, and, in point of fact, the attempt at a duet came to a conclusion at the end of the first page, for Helen only groaned and said:
‘I can’t turn over.’
But that, I am thankful to say, was our low-water mark.
Sunshine began to shine more strongly on the wreck when Legs, two days afterwards, came downstairs, with the cheering remark that he felt so ill that he was sure he couldn’t be as ill as he felt. Soon after he burst into hoarse laughter.
‘I shall cheer up when I have counted ten,’ he remarked.
Well, on the whole, when it was put simply and firmly like that, it seemed the best thing to do. Legs took change of the cheering process, and ordered a basin, soap, and three churchwarden pipes, and we blew soap-bubbles, which, though it may not be in itself a work of high endeavour, had at least the result of making us do something, which is always a good thing. So, when that was over, in order to contribute to the wholesome atmosphere of employment, I brought in and read to him and Helen what I had written that morning, and had designed to appear in the book you I are now reading. It was—I will not deceive you—a string (a long one) of cheap and gloomy reflections on the mutability of life, the reality of suffering, and the certainty of death. I had taken some trouble with it, but the most poignant and searing sentences made Legs simply roll in his chair with laughter that was noiseless merely because his throat was in such a state of relaxation that it could not make sounds. But with eyes streaming and in a strangled whisper he said:
‘Oh, do stop a moment till I don’t hurt so much with laughing, and then read it again.’
I looked at Helen. She had a handkerchief to her face, and her shoulders shook with incontrollable laughter.
‘It’s much the funniest thing you ever wrote,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it, now? Begin again at “All the pain and sorrow with which we are surrounded”—oh, no, before that—something about “It is when we are racked with suffering ourselves.” Oh, Legs, isn’t it heavenly?’