"'Lilith lisps,'" Beth wrote rapidly, "'that the _dernier cri_ in motor luxury is the----' what did you call it, Jimmy?" "Pallas Athene. Sports model." Beth wrote down Pallas Athene and then went on: "'The upholstery is of delicately tinted Russia leather, equally suited to the light fabric of a summer frock and the rich glow of winter furs.'" "Hold on," said Jimmy. "There's no use misleading the good old public. It's an 8-cylinder sports model, not a bus for going out to dinner in at night." "What I've got to do," said Beth, "is to write something that'll thrill my readers. Lilith doesn't get into motor garages, and isn't read by mechanics. She lisps in the chaste parlours of the ladies of the provincial middle classes. What they like to hear about is the upholstery. They don't care a rap about cylinders." "Oh, well, say what you jolly well like about the car, but it will be awkward for me if one of my aunts, or good old Uncle Evie, who might almost as well be an aunt, went and bought the car expecting it to be the sort of gentle family pet which purrs when stroked." "I suppose," said Beth, writing fast, "that you will have no objection to my saying that you were seen getting out of the car outside a club in St. James's?" "None in the world," said Jimmy. "You can say any mortal thing you like about me, Beth, so long as you get through with that beastly writing of yours and come out for a spin." "I've got you down already, along with Mary and Sir Evelyn and some bishop or other, as a patron of Aunt Agatha's pageant." "I say, is that the thing Uncle Evie is so keen on? I'd a letter from him the other day, asking me if I knew of a lugger which could be hired by the week or bought cheap." "Good," said Beth. "I'll make a paragraph about that. 'Apropos of the Hailey Compton Pageant, Lilith lisps that the harbours of England are being searched for a genuine eighteenth century lugger. Lord Colavon, who, besides being a keen motorist, is a distinguished yachtsman----'" "But, I say, what's the old pageant about? That's what I want to know, and being a patron I think I've a right to ask." "Smuggling," said Beth. "But for goodness' sake don't interrupt. If I'm to get these lispings done at all I simply must stick at it." "I don't believe Uncle Evie is going to smuggle. He's not sportsman enough." Mary Lambert, fully dressed for the motor run, slipped into the room in time to hear Jimmy's defence of his uncle's character. "If he won't," she said, "I wish somebody else would. The price of silk stockings is scandalous, and unless something is done about it poor girls like me won't be able to live at all. It seems to me, Jimmy, that it's your plain duty to do a little smuggling in the interests of the profession. Other people may be able to get on without silk. We can't. It's a business necessity." Jimmy sat silent for a minute or two, meditating on Mary's proposal. Then he suddenly addressed Beth.