"You may smile, swelled-head," said John; "but I'll bet you five golden guineas to a bad tanner you couldn't do it again."
"Done," I said.
After a few days, however, I realised that I had made a mistake. Even a bad sixpence is worth something nowadays.
Cecilia and Margery vied with each other in offering me the feeblest suggestions for articles that they felt sure would reduce a rhinoceros to hysterics. John presented me with a copy of A Thousand and One Jokes and Anecdotes "to prove he was a sportsman," he said. I started to look for a bad sixpence.
Then Margery said to me:—
"Why don't you write and explain the whole thing to the Editor and offer to go halves if he prints it?"
I looked at her in amazement.
"You horrible little cheat!" I said.
However, on thinking it over carefully there seems a lot to say for the idea and it's really quite fair. Anyhow I can't possibly let John win. So here's the story, and with any luck it will cost John five golden guineas. But I shan't give the Editor half.