"Then it's this. I've been putting it off as long as I can, but you've got to be told to-night. It's--well--do you know why you're here?" "Of course, I do. Haven't I just been showing you?" "Well, why are you here?" "Well, frankly, because I'm hungry, I suppose. Of course, I know that if I hadn't been I should have come in to dinner, just the same, but---- Hang it, I mean that's the root idea of a dining-room, isn't it? And I am hungry. At least I was." "Stave it off again with an almond," said Myra, pushing them along to me. "What I really meant was why you're here in the house." This was much more difficult. I began to consider possible reasons. "Because you all love me," I started; "because you put the wrong address on the envelope; because the regular boot-boy's ill; because you've never heard me sing in church; because--stop me when I'm getting warm--because Miss Fortescue refused to come unless I was invited; because----" "Stop," said Myra. "That was it. And, of course, you know I didn't mean that at all." "What an awful lot of things you don't mean to-night. Be brave, and have it right out this time." "All right, then, I will. One, two, three--we're going to act a play on Saturday." She leant forward, and regarded me with apprehension. "But why not? I'll promise to clap." "You can't, because, you see, you're going to act too. Isn't it jolly?" said Myra breathlessly. I gave what, if I hadn't just begun the last sweet, would have been a scornful laugh. "Me act? Why, I've never--I don't do it--it isn't done--I don't act--not on Saturdays. How absurd!" "Have you told him, Myra?" Dahlia called out suddenly. "I'm telling him now. I think he's taking it all right." "Don't talk about me as 'him'!" I said angrily. "And I'm not taking it all right. I'm not taking it at all." "It's only such a very small part--we're all doing something, you know. And your costume's ordered and everything. But how awfully sporting of you." After that, what could I say? "Er--what am I?" I asked modestly. "You're a--a small rat-catcher," said Myra cheerfully. "I beg your pardon?" "A rat-catcher." "You said a small one. Does that mean that I'm of diminutive size, or that I'm in a small way of business, or that my special line is young ones?" "It means that you haven't much to say." "I see. And would you call it a tragic or a pathetic part?" "It's a comic part, rather. You're Hereditary Grand Rat-Catcher to the Emperor Bong. Bong the Second. Not the first Bong, the Dinner Bong." "Look here. I suppose you know that I've never acted in my life, and never been or seen a rat-catcher in my life. It is therefore useless for you to tell me to be perfectly natural." "You have so little to do; it will be quite easy. Your great scene is where you approach the Emperor very nervously----" "I shall do the nervous part all right." "And beg him to spare the life of his mother-in-law." "Why? I mean, who is she?"