"Oh, no, you won't," John prophesied, confidently. "I'm not going to have such an excellent last scene spoilt by unnecessary talk. We'll get married first and tell everybody afterwards. I've lately discovered what an amazing capacity ordinary human nature has for invention. It really frightens me for the future of novelists, who I cannot believe will be wanted much longer. Oh no, Doris, I'm not going to run the risk of hearing any preliminary gossip about our marriage. Neither your mother nor my relations nor the general public are going to have any share in it before or after. In fact to be brief I propose to elope. Notwithstanding my romantic plays I have spent a private life of utter dullness. This is my last opportunity to do anything unusual. Please, my dearest girl, let me experience the joys of an actual elopement before I relapse into eternal humdrummery." "A horrid description of marriage!" she protested. "Comparative humdrummery, I should have said, comparative, that is to say, with the excesses attributed to me by rumor. I've often wanted to write a play about Tiberius, and I feel well equipped to do so now. But I'm serious about the elopement. I really do want to avoid my relations' tongues." "I believe you're afraid of them." "I am. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm in terror of them," he said. "But where are we going to elope to?" John picked up the _Times_. "If only the _Murmania_," he began. "And by Jove, she will too," he cried. "Yes, she's due to sail from Liverpool on April 1st." "But that's your birthday," she objected. "Exactly." "And I've already sent out those invitations." "Exactly. For some years my relations have made an April fool of me by dining at my expense on that day. I have two corner-cupboards overflowing with their gifts--the most remarkable exhibition of cheapness and ingenuity ever known. This year I am going to make April fools of them." "By marrying me?" she laughed. "Well, of course it's no use pretending that they'll be delighted by that joke, though I intend to play another still more elaborately unpleasant. At the back of all their minds exists one anxiety--the dispositions of my last will and testament. Very well. I am going to cure that worry forever by leaving them Ambles. I can't imagine anything more irritating than to be left a house in common with a number of people whom you hate. Oh, it's an exquisite revenge. Darling secretary, take down for dictation as your last task the following: "'I, John Touchwood, playwright, of 36 Church Row, Hampstead, N.W., and Ambles, Wrottesford, Hants, do hereby will and bequeathe.'" "I don't understand," she said. "Are you really making a will? or are you only playing a joke?" "Both." "But is this really to take effect when you're dead? Oh dear, I wish you wouldn't talk about death when I've just said I'll marry you." John paused thoughtfully: