"Yes," muttered John, "tell her." He subsided into an armchair.
"Well," I said, "you see, Christopher and I were up in the nursery and getting on quite all right when John butted in—"
"I simply opened—"
"John, keep quiet," said his wife. "Well, Alan?"
"Well, the fact is, Chris and I were in the middle of a great war with all his soldiers. I had just firmly established fire superiority and was actually on the verge of launching a huge offensive—the one that was going to win the war, in fact—when, as I said, in butted this great clumsy elephant and knocked half of Christopher's army over."
"Purely an accident," said John.
"Will you keep quiet, or must I make you?" asked Cecilia.
"Well, of course," I went on, "finding ourselves suddenly attacked by a common foe, Chris and I naturally joined forces to defend ourselves."
"Defend!—" shrieked John. "No, I won't keep quiet another second. Defend! Why, they rushed at me like a couple of wild hyenas."
"My dear John," said Cecilia, "you attacked them first, and of course they defended themselves as best they could."