“You can have a cold supper,” he roared, “like the rest of us.”
I yielded. Campion dragged me helpless to a tram at the top of Vauxhall Bridge Road.
“It will do Your Mightiness good to mingle with the proletariat,” he grinned.
I did not tell him that I had been mingling with it in this manner for some time past or that I repudiated the suggestion of its benign influence. I entered the tram meekly. As soon as we were seated, he began:
“I bet you won't guess what I've done with your thousand pounds. I'll give you a million guesses.”
As I am a poor conjecturer, I put on a blank expression and shook my head. He waited for an instant, and then shouted with an air of triumph:
“I've founded a prize, my boy—a stroke of genius. I've called it by your name. 'The de Gex Prize for Housewives.' I didn't bother you about it as I knew you were in a world of worry. But just think of it. An annual prize of thirty pounds—practically the interest—for housewives!”
His eyes flashed in his enthusiasm; he brought his heavy hand down on my knee.
“Well?” I asked, not electrified by this announcement.
“Don't you see?” he exclaimed. “I throw the competition open to the women in the district, with certain qualifications, you know—I look after all that. They enter their names by a given date and then they start fair. The woman who keeps her home tidiest and her children cleanest collars the prize. Isn't it splendid?”