"What's the name of the little old grasshopper
with the eyeglasses? Pepper?--Pepper shall lead us."
"Thank God, you'll never get the donkeys," said Hirst.
"I must make a note of that," said Hewet, slowly dropping his feet to
the floor. "Hirst escorts Miss Warrington; Pepper advances alone on a
white ass; provisions equally distributed--or shall we hire a mule? The
matrons--there's Mrs. Paley, by Jove!--share a carriage."
"That's where you'll go wrong," said Hirst. "Putting virgins among
matrons."
"How long should you think that an expedition like that would take,
Hirst?" asked Hewet.
"From twelve to sixteen hours I would say," said Hirst. "The time
usually occupied by a first confinement."
"It will need considerable organisation," said Hewet. He was now padding
softly round the room, and stopped to stir the books on the table. They
lay heaped one upon another.
"We shall want some poets too," he remarked. "Not Gibbon; no; d'you
happen to have _Modern_ _Love_ or _John_ _Donne_? You see, I contemplate
pauses when people get tired of looking at the view, and then it would
be nice to read something rather difficult aloud."
"Mrs. Paley _will_ enjoy herself," said Hirst.
"Mrs. Paley will enjoy it certainly," said Hewet. "It's one of the
saddest things I know--the way elderly ladies cease to read poetry. And
yet how appropriate this is:
I speak as one who plumbs
Life's dim profound,
One who at length can sound
Clear views and certain.
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