From the mouths of babes

‘At a country house during the week-end, we heard a story which some readers may know, but was new to at least one hearer. It was that of a profiteer who, furnishing his house regardless of expense, brought in his neighbour, a man of fastidious taste, to see it. The fastidious neighbour did not say much, but the next day his boy and girl at once asked if they “could see the carpet Daddie was speaking about so much last night”, whereupon the profiteer smiled as one who had achieved the triumph of having got something to make a connoisseur talk. The boy, accompanied by his sister, was taken into the room where the carpet was. He looked at it gravely and then said to his sister: “It doesn’t make me sick at all. Does it you, Mary?”’

(May 22, 1920)