A bun and a
glass of milk was her idea of lunch for a school-boy. Half her time
was taken up in losing us, and the other half in slapping us when
she had found us. The only thing we really enjoyed was the row with
the cabman coming home."
I rose to go.
"Then you won't join that symposium?" said B-----. "It would be an
easy enough thing to knock off--'Why Christmas should be
abolished.'"
"It sounds simple," I answered. "But how do you propose to abolish
it?" The lady editor of an "advanced" American magazine once set
the discussion--"Should sex be abolished?" and eleven ladies and
gentlemen seriously argued the question.
"Leave it to die of inanition," said B-----; "the first step is to
arouse public opinion. Convince the public that it should be
abolished."
"But why should it be abolished?" I asked.
"Great Scott! man," he exclaimed; "don't you want it abolished?"
"I'm not sure that I do," I replied.
"Not sure," he retorted; "you call yourself a journalist, and admit
there is a subject under Heaven of which you are not sure!"
"It has come over me of late years," I replied. "It used not to be
my failing, as you know."
He glanced round to make sure we were out of earshot, then sunk his
voice to a whisper.
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