have too much sense of decency to repeat even to an old friend. This beastly composition, in short, is one of those things they call ‘human interest stories’; one of those intimate revelations of married life over which the female public loves to gloat; all about Rosie and me and what she does when I come home cross, and so on. I tell you, Bertie, I am still blushing all over at the recollection of something she says in paragraph two.”
“What?”
“I decline to tell you. But you can take it from me that it’s the edge. Nobody could be fonder of Rosie than I am, but—dear, sensible girl as she is in ordinary life—the moment she gets in front of a dictating-machine she becomes absolutely maudlin. Bertie, that article must not appear!”
“But—”
“If it does I shall have to resign from my clubs, grow a beard, and become a hermit. I shall not be able to face the world.”
“Aren’t you pitching it a bit strong, old lad?” I said. “Jeeves, don’t you think he’s pitching it a bit strong?”
“Well, sir—”
“I am pitching it feebly,” said young Bingo, earnestly. “You haven’t heard the thing. I have. Rosie shoved the cylinder on the dictating-machine last night before dinner, and it was grisly to hear the instrument croaking out those awful sentences. If that article appears I shall