"Then the money must accumulate interest until there is," I said. Women have no heads for the law. I could not make Jane see that to buy a dormouse with the funds of the camera would be an irregular and punishable proceeding. Finally, in despair, I had to promise to ask her uncle if he would recognise the application of one quarter's payment to the purchase of a dormouse. He acceded to the somewhat unusual request with his customary good-nature. "But remember," I told Jane, "the next instalment must be spent on the camera." Slowly but surely, however, the camera fell into disuse. I was asked more rarely, and more rarely still, to look through prints. At last I was asked no more. Then the third instalment arrived. "You want some more paper and things by now, I suppose?" I said encouragingly. "The light hasn't been good lately," said Jane evasively. "I've not been taking many photos." "Then what are you going to do with the money?" "Ask Uncle if I may buy a stamp-album." * * * * * Shortly after this, Jane's uncle's birthday came round. I passed a shop in the City which had recently had a fire. Five hundred silver cigarette-cases had been pluckily rescued from the flames and, to celebrate their escape, were being offered for sale at a remarkably low figure. One of these survivors was dispatched to Jane's uncle. He dined with us the next evening, and was more grateful than I could reasonably expect. He handled the cigarette-case quite fondly. "But what about its endowment?" he asked. "What do you mean?" I said. "Well, isn't a cigarette-case as eligible as a camera?" he said. "Its needs are, I consider, even greater. Presumably this gift is meant to facilitate my smoking, but an empty cigarette-case offers me nothing to smoke--it implies the heavy responsibility on an already overburdened man of keeping it filled. Now, suppose you complete the gift, as I did Jane's, by at least a year's endowment?" I began to wish that the cigarette-cases had perished, but after his kindness to Jane I could hardly refuse. "Well, what would it cost?" I said. "That's easily reckoned," said Jane's uncle. "Say I smoke on an average fifteen cigarettes a day--that's 105 a week--that's---- Have you a piece of paper?" It worked out at just under 5,500 cigarettes a year. At 8_s._ a hundred, twenty guineas would just cover the year's endowment. It seemed out of all proportion to the cost of the case. "It's a good deal more than Jane's camera got," I protested. "I told you its claims were greater. Of course you can't expect to get off as cheaply with a fixed habit of maturity as with the passing caprice of a kid. On the other hand you might have done worse. Suppose you had given me golf-clubs--there'd have been golf-balls, caddies, club subscription, lunches, fares and postage on correspondence with _The Times_. Compared with that, what is a paltry five guineas a quarter?"