“Crumbs!” he ejaculated.
He had wished that there might be ginger cake for tea.
And there was.
At tea was the Vicar’s wife. The Vicar’s wife was afflicted with the Sale of Work mania. It is a disease to which Vicars’ wives are notoriously susceptible. She was always thinking out the next but one Sale of Work before the next one was over. She was always praised in the local press and she felt herself to be a very happy woman.
“I’m going to call the next one a Fête,” she said. “It will seem more of a change.”
“Fake?” said William with interest.
She murmured “Dear boy,” vaguely.
“We’ll advertise it widely. I’m thinking of calling it the King of Fêtes. Such an arresting title. We’ll have donkey rides and cocoanut shies, so democratic—and we ought to have fortune-telling. One doesn’t—h’m—of course, believe in it—but it’s what people expect. Some quite harmless fortune-telling—by cards, for instance——”
William gasped.
“She did mine—wonderful,” he said excitedly, “it came—just wot I wished. There was it for tea!”