"Oh," said Francesca, coming into the library, "I see you're busy with your papers. Don't let me disturb you." "If," I said, "it depended on me I wouldn't. I'd take you at your word and have you out of the room in two-twos. But you wouldn't like that, now, would you?" "I'm afraid I should have to enter a protest. That's right, isn't it? Protests _are_ things that have to be entered, aren't they?" "Yes," I said, "they're like candidates for examinations, or rooms, only some rooms oughtn't to be entered, but are." "Jocose?" said Francesca. "No," I said; "I was thinking of Blue Beard. I daresay you remember about him. He was a very uxorious man, you know, and most domestic. Something of a traveller, and when"-- "We won't worry about Blue Beard," she said. "I think I know the outlines of his family history." "Well then," I said, "why can't you leave me alone? You see I'm busy and yet you insist on staying here and interrupting me. Do you call that being a helpmeet?" "Well," she said, "I call it joining myself unto you, and that's what we were told to do to one another in the marriage service." "You're wrong," I said. "I was told to do that unto you, but you were told to submit yourself unto me and to reverence me." "It's all the same," she said. "All I'm doing is to help you to obey the Prayer-Book." "Anyhow," I said, "you've sat down and you mean to stay here. Is that what it comes to?" "It is," she said. "You're in tremendous guessing form to-day." "All I know," I said gloomily, "is that if my return for Income Tax contains many mistakes it'll be your fault, not mine; and I shall take care so to inform the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER. I shall put down in the Exemptions and Abatements, 'Interrupted by wife. Abatement claimed, L100.' The CHANCELLOR will understand. He's a married man himself." "So you're doing your Income Tax," she said dreamily. "I've often wondered how that was done. Do you like it?" "No, Francesca," I said, "I do not like it. To be quite frank with you I detest it." "But you're helping the War," she said. "That ought to buck you up like anything. Every extra penny you pay is a smack in the eye for the KAISER, so cheer up and make a good big return." "I will do," I said, "what is strictly fair between myself and the Government. I can afford to be just to the CHANCELLOR, but, by Heaven, I cannot afford to be generous. Generosity has no place in an Income Tax return." "Go ahead with it then," she said. "I don't know what's stopping you." "You," I said, "are stopping me--you and that part of my income from which the tax is not deducted at the source." "That sounds quite poetical," she said. "It runs into metre directly. Listen:-- No man can well be rude or even coarse Who has his tax deducted at the source. But I wish you'd tell me what it means."