English essays -- 20th century; Short stories, English
Another croupier with his rake pulled it off again ... and stuck to it.
The day's fun was over.
* * * * *
"What _did_ win?" asked Myra some minutes later, when the fact that we
should never see our money again had been brought home to her.
"Zero," said Archie.
I sighed heavily.
"My usual score," I said, "not my highest."
VI.
THE RECORD OF IT
"I shall be glad to see Peter again," said Dahlia, as she folded up her
letter from home.
Peter's previous letter, dictated to his nurse-secretary, had, according
to Archie, been full of good things. Cross-examination of the proud
father, however, had failed to reveal anything more stirring than "I love
mummy," and--er--so on.
We were sitting in the loggia after what I don't call breakfast--all of
us except Simpson, who was busy with a mysterious package. We had not
many days left; and I was beginning to feel that, personally, I should
not be sorry to see things like porridge again. Each to his taste.
"The time has passed absurdly quickly," said Myra. "We don't seem to have
done _anything_--except enjoy ourselves. I mean anything specially
Rivierish. But it's been heavenly."
"We've done lots of Rivierish things," I protested. "If you'll be quiet a
moment I'll tell you some."
These were some of the things:
(1) We had been to the Riviera. (Nothing could take away from that. We
had the labels on our luggage.)
(2) We had lost heavily (thirty francs) at the Tables. (This alone
justified the journey.)
(3) Myra had sat next to a Prince at lunch. (Of course she might have
done this in London, but so far there has been no great rush of Princes
to our little flat. Dukes, Mayors, Companions of St. Michael and St.
George, certainly; but, somehow, not Princes.)
(4) Simpson had done the short third hole at Mt. Agel in three. (His
first had cleverly dislodged the ball from the piled-up tee; his second,
a sudden nick, had set it rolling down the hill to the green; and the
third, an accidental putt, had sunk it.)
(5) Myra and I had seen Corsica. (Question.)
(6) And finally, and best of all, we had sat in the sun, under a blue sky
above a blue sea, and watched the oranges and lemons grow.
So, though we had been to but few of the famous beauty spots around, we
had had a delightfully lazy time; and as proof that we had not really
been at Brighton there were, as I have said, the luggage labels. But we
were to be able to show further proof. At this moment Simpson came out of
the house, his face beaming with excitement, his hands carefully
concealing something behind his back.
"Guess what I've got," he said eagerly.
"The sack," said Thomas.
"Your new bests," said Archie.
"Something that will interest us all," helped Simpson.
"I withdraw my suggestion," said Archie.
"Something we ought to have brought with us all along."
"More money," said Myra.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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