"Reason and instinct dictate the smoking of a cigarette that will give the minimum of pleasure at a moderate cost."--_Advt. in Evening Paper._ * * * * * OUR PASTORAL. "Hulloa, Melhuish," I said, "after all you had ideal weather for your _Midsummer Night's Dream_ yesterday." "Ideal," said Melhuish moodily. "Really, if you'd picked the day it couldn't have been better. You want peculiar atmospheric conditions for a pastoral, don't you? Just enough sun, not too much wind, temperature congenial for sitting out-of-doors. You had 'em all." Melhuish nodded. "Your garden must be looking like fairyland too now with the roses out and the trees in all their full summer greenery." He nodded again. "What a setting for the _Dream_! It drew a crowd, of course?" "Yes, we drew the county." I sighed regretfully. "How I wish I hadn't funked it, but with my lumbago I never dare risk damp grass and it looked so awfully like rain in the morning." Melhuish suddenly got excited. "_Looked_ like rain!" he said violently. "It _did_ rain. It rained several drops. I never saw such drops, as big as saucers. Perhaps you didn't hear the thunder?" "My dear bean," I said, "it was the thunder which put me off coming to see you as _Bottom_ and Mrs. Melhuish as _Titania_ in the most idyllic surroundings I can imagine." "You wouldn't have seen us in any idyllic surroundings," said Melhuish. He had relapsed into moodiness again. I could see there was something serious. "What happened, old friend?" I said gently. "We began rehearsing during that glorious spell of sunshine in the spring, when the garden was a carpet of daffodils and it was a sheer joy to play about out-of-doors. Then the weather broke for a time and we migrated to the Parish Hall. You know our Parish Hall?" "Quite well. A little tin place on the left from the rectory." "That's it. It's got a platform on trestles at one end and a paraffin lamp in the middle. The Vicar placed it at our disposal when there wasn't a Women's Institute or a choir practice, and on chilly nights he had the 'Beatrice stove' lit for us. Then the Summer began in real earnest. We got in extra gardeners, worked like niggers ourselves, and when the turf was in perfect condition and the thyme was coming up on _Titania's_ bank we fixed the date and billed the county. "After that we all got nervous and went about consulting weather forecasts. _Old Moore_ prophesied heavy rains. The _Daily Mail_ said a cyclone from New York was on the way. The weather-glasses jumped about and seemed to know their own minds even less than usual. Three days before the date thunderstorms were reported all over the country and a fowl was struck by lightning. But not a drop of rain came to our village.