"And why does the boy who brings it back to you expect payment for the miserable and useless object?"
"And where," I said, "does the owner disappear to afterwards? You never see a man with a hat on his head that's been run over—no, I mean, with a hat that's been run over on his head—no, no, I mean, with a hat that's been run over off his head—Francesca, I give it up; I shall never get that sentence right, but you know what I mean. Anyhow I will put the dreadful vision by. What was I talking about when this hat calamity broke in?"
"You had made," said Francesca, "a cold and distant allusion to your birthday. It's coming to-morrow."
"Well," I said, "it can come if it likes, but I shall refuse to receive it. I don't want it. I'm quite old enough without it. At my age people don't have birthdays. They just go on living, and other people say how wonderful they are for their years, and they must be sixty if they're a day, but nobody would think so, and——"
"And that it's all due to early rising and regular habits."
"And smoking and partial abstemiousness."
"And general good conduct. But you can have all that sort of praise and yet celebrate your birthday."
"But I tell you I won't have my birthday celebrated. Those are my orders."
"Orders?" she said. "People don't give orders about absurdities like that."
"Yes," I said, "they do; but their orders are not obeyed. There's Frederick, for instance. He's only eight, I know, but he's got something up his sleeve. He asked me yesterday if I could lend him threepence, and did I think that a small notebook with a pencil would be a nice present for a sort of uncle on his birthday—not a father, mind you, but an uncle. There's a Machiavelli for you."