Taking a match from the box which she thrust into my hand, I tried to light it at the wrong end; turning it round, a spark leaped into my eye. I dropped it, to rub my eye.
“Clever, aren’t you? Just the helpful sort of person one likes to be able to count upon when one is in a bit of a hole. Try again; if at first you don’t succeed, perhaps you will next time.”
I did. I held the flaming match as conveniently for her as possible; but, at best, it was not much of a light. Every few moments it went out; I had to light another. As I fumbled with them now and then, I was not always so expeditious, perhaps, as I should have been. Pollie grumbled all the while.
“Can’t you hold it steady? Who do you suppose can see if your hand keeps shaking?” It was not my hand which shook, it was the flame which flickered. “It’s queer paper; sort of cigarette paper, it seems to be; I never saw any like it—at least, so far as I can judge by the light of that match which you won’t hold steady. I wonder where it came from, and who it’s from. Emily, someone’s been playing pranks on us this night; I should like to know just what pranks they were. That’s right, let the match go out; can’t you keep it alight a little longer?”
“Thank you; it has burned my fingers as it is.”
I lit another.
“There is writing on it; I thought there was; I can see it now. Hold that match of yours closer.”
In my anxiety to obey her, I gave it too sudden a jerk, the flame was extinguished.
“There! I suppose you’ll say that you burned that to an end. If you go on wasting them at this rate we shall be in a fix indeed. How do you know that those aren’t all the matches we have got?”
“There are some more upon the mantelpiece—I saw them.”