“No,” said Bunch. “You’re quite right, Julian. I know a much nicer text, a happy text.” She quoted in a fresh voice, “For lo the Spring is here and the Voice of the Turtle is heard in the Land—I haven’t got it quite right—but you know the one I mean. Though why a turtle I can’t think. I shouldn’t think turtles have got nice voices at all.”

“The word turtle,” explained the Rev. Julian Harmon, “is not very happily translated. It doesn’t mean a reptile but the turtle dove. The Hebrew word in the original is—”

Bunch interrupted him by giving him a hug and saying:

“I know one thing—You think that the Ahasuerus of the Bible is Artaxerxes the Second, but between you and me it was Artaxerxes the Third.”

As always, Julian Harmon wondered why his wife should think that story so particularly funny.

“Tiglath Pileser wants to go and help you,” said Bunch. “He ought to be a very proud cat. He showed us how the lights fused.”

Epilogue

Epilogue

“We ought to order some papers,” said Edmund to Phillipa upon the day of their return to Chipping Cleghorn after the honeymoon. “Let’s go along to Totman’s.”

Mr. Totman, a heavy-breathing, slow-moving man, received them with affability.

“Glad to see you back, sir. And madam.”

“We want to order some papers.”

“Certainly sir. And your mother is keeping well, I hope? Quite settled down at Bournemouth?”

“She loves it,” said Edmund, who had not the faintest idea whether this was so or not, but like most sons, preferred to believe that all was well with those loved, but frequently irritating beings, parents.

“Yes, sir. Very agreeable place. Went there for my holiday last year. Mrs. Totman enjoyed it very much.”

“I’m glad. About papers, we’d like—”

“And I hear you have a play on in London, sir. Very amusing, so they tell me.”

“Yes, it’s doing very well.”

“Called Elephants Do Forget, so I hear. You’ll excuse me, sir, asking you, but I always thought that they didn’t—forget, I mean.”

“Yes—yes, exactly—I’ve begun to think it was a mistake calling it that. So many people have said just what you say.”

“A kind of natural-history fact, I’ve always understood.”

“Yes—yes. Like earwigs making good mothers.”

“Do they indeed, sir? Now, that’s a fact I didn’t know.”

“About the papers—”

“The Times, sir, I think it was?” Mr. Totman paused with pencil uplifted.

“The Daily Worker,” said Edmund firmly. “And the Daily Telegraph,” said Phillipa. “And the New Statesman,” said Edmund. “The Radio Times,” said Phillipa. “The Spectator,” said Edmund. “The Gardener’s Chronicle,” said Phillipa.

They both paused to take breath.

“Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Totman. “And the Gazette, I suppose?”

“No,” said Edmund.

“No,” said Phillipa.

“Excuse me, you do want the Gazette?”

“No.”

“No.”