Bunny laughed, and shook back his hair. “Oh, one more or less----” he boasted. “The sooner I come to a bad end, as old Nina puts it, the better! Then you’ll all stop waiting about for it! Think of me, Lottie, in convict’s garb, coming wearily home after twenty years’ hard, and leaning over the churchyard wall and counting your graves, and wishing I’d been a better brother and a better son----” Bunny acted the part with gusto, and collapsed into silent sobs with his arms on the bed-rail. “You wouldn’t be wearing convict’s garb after they’d let you out,” Lottie, unimpressed by the pantomime, corrected him. “And there’s no reason why we should all be in our churchyard graves in twenty years. Unless, of course, there’s been an epidemic,” she added, after a moment’s careful thought. Bunny started at her, and said from the fulness of his heart: “What a beastly little whelp you are!” “Oh, Bunny, when I’m helping you!” And he wondered, as so many of his sex have wondered before him, why just _his_ sisters should be devoid of beauty, charm, intelligence, humour and all generosity of spirit. Down in the sitting-room, the telephone-bell rang, interrupting a pleasant conversation in which Nina, Hal and Mrs. Fraser described the latest tango fox-trot step to Aunt Lavvy. “Hello--hello--yes?--Oh certainly. Wait a minute.” Nina laid down the receiver--“It’s for you, Aunt Lavvy.” Hal and Mrs. Fraser, both keen dancers, lowered their voices and went on talking about the Revolving Bellows step. Mrs. Maxwell, who from upstairs had heard the telephone and thought it must be for her--most people who are at all psychic seem to catch this urgent personal note in the bell--rushed into the room, but was checked to find Aunt Lavvy at the receiver, and a visitor present: Mrs. Fraser, whom she hardly knew, but who was always so kind to Nina. She began to tell her so, with effusion, but was hushed by Nina, because Aunt Lavvy had looked round from the ’phone with a little appealing smile which meant, “Please, I can’t hear a word.” “Yes?--Yes, it is. Platt’s Bank--this morning, yes.--Indeed, I remember, I received them not half an hour ago.--Oh, I am sorry; how very annoying for you, but--of course I will look, just one minute.” Aunt Lavvy turned round again to the room at large: “Nina darling, will you bring me my little bag. There it is, lying on the chair. The clerk at Platt’s has just found out he has given somebody an extra pound note by mistake this morning, and it may quite well be----” she drew out a little packet and counted “One, two, three, four, five--no, there are only five; I’ll just turn the bag out, in case--reticule is the word to use at my age, isn’t it, Mrs. Fraser? A dear old-fashioned word.... Only five treasury-notes, and the half-crown and sixpence I had before--thank you, Nina. Hello----”