So we compromised with a large china soup ladle and a big wooden spoon, which I used like chop sticks, and at last got the shrapnel into the water. Of course it was disappointing when it dropped heavily to the bottom without so much as a sizzle, much less a bang. Still—we had the comfortable feeling that we were on the safe side now.
Eventually I had it in my study. I said it would be safer there. But though the neighbourhood was thus debarred from seeing and handling it, the fame of it spread with amazing rapidity; and the lady across the road arrived quite early in the afternoon, having heard from her housemaid, who had heard it from her gardener, who had heard it from the road-sweeper, who had heard it from the grocer’s man, who had heard it from my cook, that I had a huge shell weighing half-a-hundredweight, covered with venomous spikes, all deadly poison, that had dropped down the chimney right into the centre of the kitchen fire, where it had been found, still hissing, when they went to rake out the ashes in the morning.
I didn’t display the fragment to my neighbour, nor to subsequent callers; it is such a pity to rob people of happiness. I merely said I thought it better to keep it well away from all vibration, as so far it hadn’t exploded. And one and all assured me I was very wise, and remembered pressing engagements elsewhere.
I reached the zenith of my fame when a police inspector, accompanied by a subordinate, rang the front door bell, and understood that I had in my possession a portion of a Zeppelin that had foundered on my lawn. It appeared that he had been up all night, and had worn out miles of shoe leather, hunting for the missing half of that Zeppelin; and had I the gondola as well? He seemed to suspect that I might be holding that back in order to have it stuffed and put under a glass shade in the drawing-room.
He looked disappointed when I showed him the fragment of iron; said they had plenty of bits that size; but he admitted that none of them had a spike like that at one end, and darkly hinted that it might be just the missing link they were looking for. Then he and the subordinate tenderly carried it away between them.
We all intend to visit the War Museum later on. Personally, I’m very keen to see what they ticket it.
Nevertheless, when each little excitement subsided, reaction set in, and Abigail’s spirits promptly dropped to zero. But at length a post card arrived in time to save her (and us) from utter collapse, and the bath-taps were once more polished to the tune of “Days and moments quickly flying.”
Thus, as I have already stated, winter merged into spring; and then spring made way for early summer (as I’ve known it do before), and we racked our brains to find a suitable substitute for pork pie.