"It is beautifully simple. I am told that a bazaar is contemplated and asked if I will assist. Very well, I send my cushion. That is quite good enough; no one would expect me to do more. Then I go, on the appointed day, buy the cushion, and walk out with an enormous parcel for all the world to see that I have done my duty. Then it goes back in its box. The only bazaars that I am unable to assist are those which occur (as they sometimes do) when my cushion happens to be out."
"And is it never sold?"
"Well, look at it!" said Father William. "Of course it had to be of such a nature that there was no danger of its going off too quick. I used always to go early on the first day to make sure. But since the last time it was re-covered I have had more confidence in its staying powers. I find there is no particular hurry."
"Do you put a price on it?" I asked.
"Oh, no. I don't like to do that. That might put me in an awkward position if it came out. But I find it fairly exciting on each occasion to discover what I shall have to pay for it. It is generally more expensive now than it used to be in the old days. I suppose it is the rise in the cost of living. But I am seldom satisfied, either way. If it is too cheap I naturally feel rather slighted, seeing that it was I who sent it; and if it is too dear of course I am annoyed because I have to buy it. And it fluctuates extraordinarily. I have more than once bought it in at half-a-crown and come home burning with indignation, and, if you will believe me, there was a blackguard at that big Sale of Work for the Territorials in the autumn who had the effrontery to charge me a guinea and a half. I was furious with him."
"I wish you would lend it to me, Father William," said I, after a pause. "We are getting up a Jumble Sale in Little Sudbury."
"No," said Father William firmly, "no. Little Sudbury is barred. The last time it was there on sale there was a very painful scene. I had arrived rather late, I remember, and I found my cushion actually being sold by auction along with a pair of worsted slippers and a woolly door mat—in one lot. I thought it showed very poor taste. Besides, it is already booked to appear six times in the next fortnight."
Dear Old Lady. "You have a picture in the window marked ten-and-six, by a Mr. Holbein. Could you tell me if that is an original painting or merely a print?"