"It's a big ship" (I could overhear Ethel's voice through the open nursery window). "I know perfectly well it is. It's one of the Cunarders."
"Well, you're quite wrong then," (this from Jack). "It was passed through Parliament. You can't pass a ship through Parliament."
"It's the sister ship to the Lusitania—so there!"
Joan's thoughtful voice intervened.
"I can tell you what it is," she said. "It's a place for burying people—a sort of big tomb where they put dead kings. There's one at Windsor."
Curiously enough I was myself at the moment rather puzzled as to what it was and how it worked.
"Do you know, William," I said to my host, "that you are owing me ten pounds and I've got to get home to-day, and I've no money?"
"Oh, but I shan't pay it now," he replied shamelessly.
"Why not?"
"I'm going to put a Moratorium on you. I don't know, of course, if that's quite the correct phrase. The thing is new to me. But at least I can see how it works. You had better try James. He owes you five, and he never reads the papers, so he may not have heard of it."