That was a week ago. This morning I was really ill at last; had hardly any breakfast; simply couldn't look a poached egg in the yolk. A day on the sofa in a darkened room and bed at seven o'clock was my programme. And then my eye caught a great box of clothes, and I remembered that the dance was to-night. I opened the box. Perhaps dressed soberly as a black-haired butcher I could look in for an hour or two ... and---- _Help!_ A yellow waistcoat, pink breeches, and--no, it's not an eider-down, it's a coat. _A yellow---- Pink br----_ I am going as Joseph. I am going as Swan & Edgar. I am going as the Sick Duke, by Orchardson. I am going--yes, that's it, I am going back to bed. AFTER DINNER I. THE COMPLETE KITCHEN I wat in the drawing-room after dinner with my knees together and my hands in my lap, and waited for the game to be explained to me. "There's a pencil for you," said somebody. "Thank you very much," I said, and put it carefully away. Evidently I had won a forfeit already. It wasn't a very good pencil though. "Now, has everybody got pencils?" asked somebody else. "The game is called 'Furnishing a Kitchen.' It's quite easy. Will somebody think of a letter?" She turned to me. "Perhaps you'd better." "Certainly," I said, and I immediately thought very hard of N. These thought-reading games are called different things, but they are all the same really, and I don't believe in any of them. "Well?" said everybody. "What? ... Yes, I have. Go on.... Oh, I beg your pardon," I said in confusion. I thought you---- N. is the letter." "N or M?" I smiled knowingly to myself. "My godfather and my godmother," I went on cautiously---- "It was N," interrupted somebody. "Now then, you've got five minutes in which to write down everything you can beginning with N. Go." And they all started to write like anything. I took my pencil out and began to think. I know it sounds an easy game to you now, as you sit at your desk surrounded by dictionaries; but when you are squeezed on to the edge of a sofa, given a very blunt pencil and a thin piece of paper, and challenged to write in five minutes (on your knees) all the words you can think of beginning with a certain letter--well, it is another matter altogether. I thought of no end of things which started with K, or even L; I thought of "rhinoceros," which is a very long word and starts with R; but as for---- I looked at my watch and groaned. One minute gone. "I _must_ keep calm," I said, and in a bold hand I wrote _Napoleon_. Then, after a moment's thought, I added _Nitro-glycerine_, and _Nats_. "This is splendid," I told myself. "_Notting Hill_, _Nobody_ and _Noon_. That makes six." At six I stuck for two minutes. I did worse than that in fact; for I suddenly remembered that gnats were spelt with a G. However, I decided to leave them, in case nobody else remembered. And on the fourth minute I added _Non-sequitur_. "Time!" said somebody.