He tried again and got a lot more colour into it.
"Strictly speaking," said Myra sadly, "you ought to have got it on to a new film."
Simpson looked in horror at the back of his camera, found that he had forgotten to turn the handle, apologised profusely, and wound up very gingerly till the number "2" approached. "Now then," he said, looking up ... and found himself alone.
As I write this in London I have Simpson's album in front of me. Should you ever do us the honour of dining with us (as I hope you will), and (which seems impossible) should there ever come a moment when the conversation runs low, and you are revolving in your mind whether it is worth while asking us if we have been to any theatres lately, then I shall produce the album, and you will be left in no doubt that we are just back from the Riviera. You will see oranges and lemons and olives and cactuses and palms; blue sky (if you have enough imagination) and still bluer sea; picturesque villas, curious effects of rocks, distant backgrounds of mountain ... and on the last page the clever kindly face of Simpson.
The whole affair will probably bore you to tears.
But with Myra and me the case of course is different. We find these things, as Simpson said, very jolly to look back on.
[Illustration: [_Extract from Sentries' Orders_: "In case of man overboard, will throw the ship's life-buoy overboard, and report to the ship's officer on the bridge. In case of fire will at once report it quietly to the ship's officer on the bridge."]
_Officer of the Watch (on transport)._ "WHAT DO YOU DO IN CASE OF FIRE?"
_Nervous Sentry._ "THROW MESELF OVERBOARD AN' REPORT AT ONCE TO THE BLOKE ON THE BALCONY."]
Martell is one of those men that you might live next door to for half-a-century and never know any better. It is entirely owing to his wife and her love for Peter that Martell and I have discovered each other to be quite companionable fellows with many tastes in common, and I am smoking one of his cigars at the present moment.
Peter is the most precious and the most coveted of my possessions. He is coveted, or was, chiefly by Mrs. Martell, who fell in love with his name and his deep romantic eyes. Apart from these I can see nothing remarkable in him. He is certainly the most irresponsible hound that ever sat down in front of a motor-car to attend to his personal cleanliness, but still I should not like to part with him. "We must have a Peter," was the text of Mrs. Martell's domestic monologues, and of late, before the great disillusionment--that is, after hinting delicately to me that she would like best of all to have _the_ Peter--she took to sallying forth, armed with the name, into the purlieus of dog-fanciers to find a criminal that would fit the punishment.