"Will you _promise,"_ said Celia, "that we shall have lunch in there one day?" "I promise," I said readily. That gave me about sixty years to do something in. "I'm like--who was it who saw something of another man's and wouldn't be happy till he got it?" "The baby in the soap advertisement." "No, no, some king in history." "I believe you are thinking of Ahab, but you aren't a bit like him, really. Besides, we're not coveting Stopes. All we want to know is, does Barlow ever let it in the summer?" "That's it," said Celia eagerly. "And, if so," I went on, "will he lend us the money to pay the rent with?" "Er--yes," said Celia. "That's it." * * * * * So for a month we have lived in our Castle of Stopes. I see Celia there in her pink sun-bonnet, gathering the flowers lovingly, bringing an armful of them into the hall, disturbing me sometimes in the library with "_Aren't_ they beauties? No, I only just looked in--good luck to you." And she sees me ordering a man about importantly, or waving my hand to her as I ride through the old barn on my road to the golf course. But this morning she had an idea. "Suppose," she said timidly, "you _wrote_ about Stopes, and Mr. Barlow happened to see it, and knew how much we wanted it, and--" "Well!" "Then," said Celia firmly, "if he were a gentleman he would give it to us." Very well. Now we shall see if Mr. Barlow is a gentleman. THE SANDS OF PLEASURE Ladies first, so we will start with Jenny. Jenny is only nine, but she has been to the seaside before and knows all about it. She wears the fashionable _costume de plage_, which consists of a white linen hat, a jersey and an overcrowded pair of bathing-drawers, into which not only Jenny, but the rest of her wardrobe, has had to fit itself. Two slim brown legs emerge to bear the burden, and one feels that if she fell over she would have to stay there until somebody picked her up. She is holding Richard Henry by the hand. Richard Henry is four, and this is the first time he has seen the sea. Jenny is showing it to him. Privately he thinks that it has been over-rated. There was a good deal of talk about it in his suburb (particularly from Jenny, who had been there before) and naturally one expected something rather--well, rather more like what they had been saying it was like. However, perhaps it would be as well to keep in with Jenny and not to let her see that he is disappointed, so every time she says, "Isn't the sea lovely?" he echoes, "Lovely," and now and then he adds (just to humour her), "Is 'at the sea?" and then she has the chance to say again, "Yes, that's the sea, darling. Isn't it lovely?" It is obvious that she is proud of it. Apparently she put it there. Anyway, it seems to be hers now.