Reginald

<h2>REGINALD ON TARIFFS</h2> <p>I&rsquo;m not going to discuss the Fiscal Question (said Reginald); I wish to be original.&nbsp; At the same time, I think one suffers more than one realises from the system of free imports.&nbsp; I should like, for instance, a really prohibitive duty put upon the partner who declares on a weak red suit and hopes for the best.&nbsp; Even a free outlet for compressed verbiage doesn&rsquo;t balance matters.&nbsp; And I think there should be a sort of bounty-fed export (is that the right expression?) of the people who impress on you that you ought to take life seriously.&nbsp; There are only two classes that really can&rsquo;t help taking life seriously&mdash;schoolgirls of thirteen and Hohenzollerns; they might be exempt.&nbsp; Albanians come under another heading; they take life whenever they get the opportunity.&nbsp; The one Albanian that I was ever on speaking terms with was rather a decadent example.&nbsp; He was a Christian and a grocer, and I don&rsquo;t fancy he had ever killed anybody.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t like to question him on the subject&mdash;that showed my delicacy.&nbsp; Mrs. Nicorax says I have no delicacy; she hasn&rsquo;t forgiven me about the mice.&nbsp; You see, when I was staying down there, a mouse used to cake-walk about my room half the night, and none of their silly patent traps seemed to take its fancy as a bijou residence, so I determined to appeal to the better side of it&mdash;which with mice is the inside.&nbsp; So I called it Percy, and put little delicacies down near its hole every night, and that kept it quiet while I read Max Nordau&rsquo;s <i>Degeneration</i> and other reproving literature, and went to sleep.&nbsp; And now she says there is a whole colony of mice in that room.</p> <p>That isn&rsquo;t where the indelicacy comes in.&nbsp; She went out riding with me, which was entirely her own suggestion, and as we were coming home through some meadows she made a quite unnecessary attempt to see if her pony would jump a rather messy sort of brook that was there.&nbsp; It wouldn&rsquo;t.&nbsp; It went with her as far as the water&rsquo;s edge, and from that point Mrs. Nicorax went on alone.&nbsp; Of course I had to fish her out from the bank, and my riding-breeches are not cut with a view to salmon-fishing&mdash;it&rsquo;s rather an art even to ride in them.&nbsp; Her habit-skirt was one of those open questions that need not be adhered to in emergencies, and on this occasion it remained behind in some water-weeds.&nbsp; She wanted me to fish about for that too, but I felt I had done enough Pharaoh&rsquo;s daughter business for an October afternoon, and I was beginning to want my tea.&nbsp; So I bundled her up on to her pony, and gave her a lead towards home as fast as I cared to go.&nbsp; What with the wet and the unusual responsibility, her abridged costume did not stand the pace particularly well, and she got quite querulous when I shouted back that I had no pins with me&mdash;and no string.&nbsp; Some women expect so much from a fellow.&nbsp; When we got into the drive she wanted to go up the back way to the stables, but the ponies <i>know</i> they always get sugar at the front door, and I never attempt to hold a pulling pony; as for Mrs. Nicorax, it took her all she knew to keep a firm hand on her seceding garments, which, as her maid remarked afterwards, were more <i>tout</i> than <i>ensemble</i>.&nbsp; Of course nearly the whole house-party were out on the lawn watching the sunset&mdash;the only day this month that it&rsquo;s occurred to the sun to show itself, as Mrs. Nic. viciously observed&mdash;and I shall never forget the expression on her husband&rsquo;s face as we pulled up.&nbsp; &ldquo;My darling, this is too much!&rdquo; was his first spoken comment; taking into consideration the state of her toilet, it was the most brilliant thing I had ever heard him say, and I went into the library to be alone and scream.&nbsp; Mrs. Nicorax says I have no delicacy.</p> <p>Talking about tariffs, the lift-boy, who reads extensively between the landings, says it won&rsquo;t do to tax raw commodities.&nbsp; What, exactly, is a raw commodity?&nbsp; Mrs. Van Challaby says men are raw commodities till you marry them; after they&rsquo;ve struck Mrs. Van C., I can fancy they pretty soon become a finished article.&nbsp; Certainly she&rsquo;s had a good deal of experience to support her opinion.&nbsp; She lost one husband in a railway accident, and mislaid another in the Divorce Court, and the current one has just got himself squeezed in a Beef Trust.&nbsp; &ldquo;What was he doing in a Beef Trust, anyway?&rdquo; she asked tearfully, and I suggested that perhaps he had an unhappy home.&nbsp; I only said it for the sake of making conversation; which it did.&nbsp; Mrs. Van Challaby said things about me which in her calmer moments she would have hesitated to spell.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s a pity people can&rsquo;t discuss fiscal matters without getting wild.&nbsp; However, she wrote next day to ask if I could get her a Yorkshire terrier of the size and shade that&rsquo;s being worn now, and that&rsquo;s as near as a woman can be expected to get to owning herself in the wrong.&nbsp; And she will tie a salmon-pink bow to its collar, and call it &ldquo;Reggie,&rdquo; and take it with her everywhere&mdash;like poor Miriam Klopstock, who <i>would</i> take her Chow with her to the bathroom, and while she was bathing it was playing at she-bears with her garments.&nbsp; Miriam is always late for breakfast, and she wasn&rsquo;t really missed till the middle of lunch.</p> <p>However, I&rsquo;m not going any further into the Fiscal Question.&nbsp; Only I should like to be protected from the partner with a weak red tendency.</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />