"Stop, Francesca," I said, "or I shall go mad."
"If," she continued inexorably, "a train travelling at the rate of sixty-two miles and three-quarters in an hour takes two and a half seconds to pass a lame man walking in the same direction find how many men with one arm each can board a motor-bus in Piccadilly Circus, having first extracted the square root of the wheel-base."
"Stow it," I said.
"Isn't that rude?" she said.
"Yes," I said; "it was intended to be."
"Well, but what are you doing?"
"I'm calculating rates of percentage on the new War Loan," I said.
"Why worry over that?" she said. "It announces itself as a five-per-center, and I'm willing to take it at its word. What's your difficulty? Surely you do not impute prevarication to the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER."
"No," I said, "far from it. I have the greatest possible respect for him. I'm sure he would not deceive a poor investor; but he doesn't know my difficulties. It's this getting £100 by paying only £95 that's knocking me sideways; and then there's the income tax, and the other loan at four per cent., on which no income tax is to be charged, and the conversion of the old four-and-a-half per cent. War Loan, and of the various lots of Exchequer Bonds. It's all as generous as it can be, but for a man whose mathematical education has been, shall we say, defective, it's as bad as a barbed-wire entanglement."
"Oh, don't muddle your unfortunate head any more. Just plank down your money and take what they give you. That's my motto."