“Dozens of times. It’s pie. Nothing to it. Why, I once addressed a girls’ school.”
“You weren’t nervous?”
“Not a bit.”
“How did you go?”
“They hung on my lips. I held them in the hollow of my hand.”
“They didn’t throw eggs, or anything?”
“Not a thing.”
He expelled a deep breath, and for a space stood staring in silence at a passing slug.
“Well,” he said, at length, “it may be all right. Possibly I am letting the thing prey on my mind too much. I may be wrong in supposing it the fate that is worse than death. But I’ll tell you this much: the prospect of that prize-giving on the thirty-first of this month has been turning my existence into a nightmare. I haven’t been able to sleep or think or eat ... By the way, that reminds me. You never explained that cipher telegram about the sausages and ham.”
“It wasn’t a cipher telegram. I wanted you to go light on the food, so that she would realize you were in love.”