THE KISS 187 



Mr Dashwood examined the card. 



It contained the programme and the rules of a 

 small poetical club presided over by a Miss SKmon. 

 Each member was supposed to invent or create a 

 poem on a given subject each month, and to send 

 the result to Miss SKmon, who would read it. But 

 the matter did not end there. Miss Shmon, by 

 virtue of her seK-constituted office, would send in 

 due course each member's poem to each of the 

 other members for criticism, and the results would 

 be made known and pubhshed in a small pamphlet 

 at the end of the year. The subscription was a 

 guinea, and to this society for the circulation of 

 rubbish Miss Grimshaw had been invited to sub- 

 scribe. Hence the trouble. 



" She asked me did I like poetry, and I said I 

 did, like a fool, and then she asked me to join, 

 and I agreed. I can't back out now. She never 

 told me the subscription was a guinea — " 



" It's beastly bad luck," said IVIr Dashwood, 

 who by this time knew the financial affairs of the 

 Frenchs thoroughly to their innermost con- 

 volutions, and who was at the moment himself in 

 the most horrible condition of penury, a condition 

 that made the purchase of his week-end ticket to 

 Crowsnest (he came down every week-end) a 

 matter of consequence. 



" And that's not all," went on the girl. 

 " Here's a bazaar coming on, and of course we'll 

 have to subscribe to that in some way. They 



