“That was only an illustration. Let’s have a—what do you call it in bookkeeping?”
“Don’t know. Never did any.”
“I have—but I always got mixed up, and used to put credit entries on the debit side, and vice versa—so they fired me out. Oh, I know—a joint venture! It struck me as such a romantic phrase to come across in the middle of musty old figures. It’s got an Elizabethan flavour about it—makes one think of galleons and doubloons. A joint venture!”
“Trading under the name of the Young Adventurers, Ltd. ? Is that your idea, Tuppence?”
“It’s all very well to laugh, but I feel there might be something in it.”
“How do you propose to get in touch with your would-be employers?”
“Advertisement,” replied Tuppence promptly. “Have you got a bit of paper and a pencil? Men usually seem to have. Just like we have hairpins and powder-puffs.”
Tommy handed over a rather shabby green notebook, and Tuppence began writing busily.
“Shall we begin: ‘Young officer, twice wounded in the war—’ ”
“Certainly not.”
“Oh, very well, my dear boy. But I can assure you that that sort of thing might touch the heart of an elderly spinster, and she might adopt you, and then there would be no need for you to be a young adventurer at all.”
“I don’t want to be adopted.”