"Look here," said Berry, "you enter that bathroom, clothed--after a fashion--and in your right mind. Then you leave it for some matches. On your return you turn on the gas. After wasting four matches, you laugh pleasantly, put on your dressing-gown again, and go about the house asking everyone for a ten-centime piece... This you place in the slot. Then you go out again and try to remember where you put the matches. By the time you're back, the whole room is full of gas, so you open the window wide and clean your teeth to fill up the time. Long before it's safe you strike another match. The thing lights with an explosion that shortens your life.... In about two minutes it emits a roaring sound and begins to shake all over. By now all the taps are red-hot, and, by the time you've burnt yourself to hell, you're wondering whether, if you start at once, you'll have time to leave the house before the thing bursts. Finally, you knock the gas off with the cork mat.... "After a decent interval you start again. This time you turn on the water first. Stone cold, of course. When you've used enough gas to roast an ox, you hope like anything and reduce the flow." He paused to pass a hand wearily across his eyes. "Have you ever seen Vesuvius in eruption?" he added. "I admit no rocks were discharged--at least, I didn't see any. There may be some in the bath. I didn't wait to look.... Blinded by the steam, deafened by the noise, you make a rush for the door. This seems to have been moved. You feel all over the walls, like a madman. In the frenzy of despair--it's astonishing how one clings to life--you hurl yourself at the bath and turn on both taps.... As if by magic the steam disappears, the roaring subsides, and two broad streams of pure cold water issue, like crystal founts, into the bath. Now you know why I'm so jolly this morning." With tears running down her cheeks-- "You must have a bath in the dressing-room," wailed Daphne. "The others do." "I won't," said Berry. "It faces North." "Then you must have it at night." "Not to-night," I interposed. "Nobby's bagged it." With the laugh of a maniac, my brother-in-law requested that the facts should be laid before the Sealyham, and the latter desired to waive his rights. "Of course," he concluded, "if you want me to become verminous, just say so." There was a shriek of laughter. "And now be quick," said Daphne, "or we shall be late for the meet. And I particularly want to see Sally." Sarah Featherstone was the possessor of the coveted shawl.