"Wouldn't it be nicer to land at Sonning and have our tea there?" he suggested. We were dropping through the lock just higher than the village; the wet, mossy walls were rising above us on both sides and the tops of the lock-keeper's gorgeous pink snapdragons were rapidly going out of sight. My host went on: "There's rather a nice rose-garden, and it's on the river, and the plum-cake's good. What do you think, that or on board?" "The rose-garden," I decided. Sonning is a village cut out of a book and pasted on the earth. It can't be true, it's so pretty. And the little White Hart Inn is adorable. "Is it really three hundred years old?" I asked. "The standard roses look like an illustration out of 'Alice in Wonderland.' Yes, please--tea in the White Hart garden." The old General heaved a sigh. "Thank Heaven," he said. "I was most awfully anxious for fear you'd say on the boat, and I didn't order any." We slipped under an arch of the ancient red bridge and were at the landing. I remember the scene as we stood on shore and looked down the shining way of the river, the tall grasses bending on either side like green fur stroked by the breeze; I remember the trim sea-wall and velvet lawn, and the low, long house with leaded windows of the place next the inn. A house-boat was moored to the shore below, white, with scarlet geraniums flowing the length of the upper deck, and willow chairs and tables; people were having tea up there; muslin curtains blew from the portholes below. Some Americans went past with two enormous Scotch deer-hound puppies on leash. "Be quiet, Jock," one of them said, and the big, gentle-faced beast turned on her with a giant, caressing bound, the last touch of beauty in the beautiful, quiet scene. It was early, so that we took the table which pleased us, one set a bit aside against a ten-foot hedge, and guarded by a tall bush of tea-roses. A plump maid hurried across the lawn and spread a cloth on our table and waited, smiling, as if seeing us had simply made her day perfect. And the General gave the orders. "The plum-cake is going to be wonderful," I said then, "and I'm hungry as a bear for tea. But the best thing I've been promised this afternoon is a fairy-story." The shrapnel look flashed, keen and bright and afire, but I looked back steadily, not afraid. I knew what sunlight was going to break; and it broke. "D'you know," said he, "I'm really quite mad to talk about myself. Men always are. You've heard the little tale of the man who said, 'Let's have a garden-party. Let's go out on the lawn and talk about me'? One becomes a frightful bore quite easily. So that I've made rules--I don't hector people about--about things I've been concerned with. As to the incident I said I'd tell you, that would be quite impossible to tell to--well, practically anyone."