Then if so be as they wanted to leave the rest to
him, well he'd be proud to do his best for them. They knew him. Do
fair by him and he'd do fair by them. Soon as he knew how much money
they'd got, and how many were going to sit down, then he could get to
work. That was all _he'd_ got to say about celebrations.
The enthusiasm was tremendous. Rut the Vicar looked anxious, and
whispered to the Squire. The Squire shrugged his shoulders and
murmured something, and the Vicar rose. They would be all glad to
hear, he said, glad but not surprised, that with his customary
generosity the Squire had decided to throw open his own beautiful
gardens and pleasure-grounds to them on Peace Day and to take upon his
own shoulders the burden of entertaining them. He would suggest that
they now give Sir John three hearty cheers. This was done, and the
proceedings closed.
A Train of Thought
On the same day I saw two unsettling announcements in the papers. The
first said simply, underneath a suitable photograph, that the ski-ing
season was now in full swing in Switzerland; the second explained
elaborately why it cost more to go from London to the Riviera and back
than from the Riviera to London and back.
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