``You see, Loona
Bimberton had a Coronation Ode accepted by the _New
Infancy_, a paper that has been started with the idea of
making the _New Age_ seem elder and hidebound. `So clever
of you, dear Loona,' the Packletide remarked when she had
read it; `of course, any one could write a Coronation Ode,
but no one else would have thought of doing it.' Loona
protested that these things were extremely difficult to do,
and gave us to understand that they were more or less the
province of a gifted few. Now the Packletide has been
rather decent to me in many ways, a sort of financial
ambulance, you know, that carries you off the field when
you're hard hit, which is a frequent occurrence with me, and
I've no use whatever for Loona Bimberton, so I chipped in
and said I could turn out that sort of stuff by the square
yard if I gave my mind to it. Loona said I couldn't, and we
got bets on, and between you and me I think the money's
fairly safe. Of course, one of the conditions of the wager
is that the thing has to be published in something or other,
local newspapers barred; but Mrs. Packletide has endeared
herself by many little acts of thoughtfulness to the editor
of the _Smoky Chimney_, so if I can hammer out anything at
all approaching the level of the usual Ode output we ought
to be all right.
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