"Well, that's a fairly good lead," said Sinclair. "I propose to double you on mushrooms and I should like to be put down for a kidney. What about you, Henry?"
"Nothing but one rasher of bacon, please," said Henry meekly. "I am never hungry in the morning and I have always wanted to know how much bacon there is in a rasher. A single cup of tea, no sugar, but plenty of cream."
My wife had been writing busily. Now she looked up. "What about toast?" she enquired.
"You are going into details," said Sinclair approvingly. "Doesn't it rather depend on the size of the slice? You may enter me for a couple of slices, three by two. And jam—no, marmalade. An ounce of marmalade."
"Do be quiet while I add it up," said my wife, for Sinclair was causing a lot of confusion by trying to barter a brace of mushrooms against my second egg (or at least to hold an option on the egg) in case he changed his mind before the morning. "And now I'll just send this to the kitchen, and then I'll go to bed."
It never really panned out well. On the first morning a very awkward thing happened. My wife, in her zeal to provide for her guests, had omitted to count herself in. We had to make a subscription for her, and it must be said that a splendid response was forthcoming, Sinclair nobly renouncing his kidney. But the result was that lunch had to be put half-an-hour earlier, and the day was disorganised.
On the second morning, the Rev. Henry was down early and bagged all my toast, while Sinclair, who had slept badly, refused to meet his obligations in the matter of kedjeree.
By the third day there was a good deal of unseemly barter and exchange going on, and Sinclair made a corner in eggs. "The trouble is," he explained, "that you never really know how good a thing is till you see it. Overnight a sardine on toast means nothing to me; and it was never announced that these eggs were going to be poached."
On the fourth day the scheme was tottering. Sinclair had actually been for a walk before breakfast and was consequently making an unsuccessful tour of the table in quest of extra toast. He then looked for the second time under the little blue blanket that keeps the eggs warm and peered disconsolately into the coffee pot. And then he struck.
"I'm afraid we shall have to chuck it," he announced. "We mean well, but it doesn't work."