"And what is to be the first name?" I enquired.
"Oh, it doesn't matter," he said. "You must take the whole lot in turn. Begin with me, if you like."
Then indeed I had to make a protest. I had never imagined that we were to play with the names of the people actually in the room at that moment! More execrable taste... I was only thankful that Will had not proposed so detestable a game and was sorry to see him taking such a lead in it. Personalities of all kinds I abominate; there is a new school of humour which fancies that it has been very clever when people of better breeding would only say that it had been unpardonably rude. Spenworth? Exactly! You could not have chosen a better example. And games of this kind always end in one way...
"Surely," I pleaded, "we need not run the risk of hurting any one's feelings. If you take people who are known to us all by reputation..."
"Oh, it's much more fun this way," I was assured by Will. "And there's no need for any one to be offended; all the questions are about good qualities—charm and eloquence and so forth. If you think I have no charm, shove down a nought; that's much better than having 'Bad temper' and being given ten marks for it by everybody. I'll start, anyway, to give you all confidence."
I ought to have resisted more strongly, but I could not let them feel that I was what Will calls a "wet blanket" to everything they proposed. Already they had abandoned cards and interrupted their dancing out of deference to me... We began to play, and I confess that I found the game mercilessly tiresome. Imagine! A list of thirty or forty questions, which you had to answer fourteen or fifteen times over! Then a pause, while the papers were collected and the marks added; then the totals and a great deal of discussion and laughter and sometimes rather ill-natured facetiousness. And then the whole thing over again!
It would have been wearisome enough if they had played conscientiously; but, when the game was treated as a joke or a means of being malicious in secret, it was sheer waste of time. When my turn came, I was let off with quite a good character; but I am not vain enough to attribute this to anything more than luck or carelessness. I was not one of the intimates; they were in a hurry to put down any marks anywhere and move on to their next victim. At the same time I found it exceedingly unpleasant when the totals were read out—or, let me say, it would have been unpleasant if the whole game had not been so ridiculous. A hundred and fifty marks was the maximum; and, when "Love of Music" was given, I found that I had been accorded—twenty! I, who had been clamouring for music when every one else wanted to gamble or indulge in negro dances... And I have no doubt that I am indebted for the princely total of twenty to the chivalry of my host and hostess, who could not very well criticize a guest—at least on that score... Will? You think that Will came to my support? I do not know what had overtaken him that night; his surroundings reacted on him until he was unrecognizable. When we reached "Sense of Humour", he called out:
"Oh, I say, here's a lark! 'Sense of Humour; grand total, nought.'"
All I can say is, I was glad to have enough humour to see the absurdity and to join in the general laugh. But I was furious with Will...
You might have thought that, after I had been pilloried and held up to the scorn of young women whom I would not allow to enter my back-door, artists or no artists, I might have been suffered to go to bed. But no! That would upset the totals! I must stay to the bitter end, though my head was aching with fatigue and I could see that the game was growing more and more ill-natured...