My Uncle Oswald

'Now I want my holiday,' Yasmin said. 'A good one. Aren't we about finished anyway?'

'America's next,' I said.

'There aren't many there.'

'No, but we have to get them. We'll go over in style on the Mauretania.'

'I want a holiday first,' Yasmin said. 'You promised me. I'm not going anywhere until I've had a nice long rest.'

'How long?'

'A month.'

We had driven straight to Cambridge after disembarking from the Danish boat at Harwich and we were having a drink in the living-room at 'Dunroamin'. A. R. Woresley came in rubbing his hands.

'Congratulations,' he said. 'You've done a great job with those kings.'

'Yasmin wants a month's holiday,' I said. 'But personally I think we ought to bash on and get America done first.'

A. R. Woresley, puffing his disgusting pipe, looked at Yasmin through the smoke and said, 'I agree with Cornelius. Get the job done first, take a holiday later.'

'No,' Yasmin said.

'Why not?' Woresley said.

'Because I don't want to, that's why.'

'Well, I suppose it's up to you,' Woresley said.

'You bet your life it's up to me,' Yasmin said.

'Aren't you having a good time?' I said.

'The fun's wearing off,' she said. 'In the beginning it was a lark. Terrific joke. But now all of a sudden I seem to have had enough.'

'Don't say that.'

'I've said it.'

'Hell.'

'What both of you seem to be forgetting,' she said, 'is that every time we want the sperm of some bloody genius, I'm the one who has to go in and do the fighting. I'm the one who gets it in the neck.'

'Not in the neck,' I said.

'Stop trying to be funny, Oswald.' She sat there looking glum. A. R. Woresley said nothing.

'If you have a month's holiday now,' I said, 'will you come to America with me immediately after that?'

'Yes, all right.'

'You're going to enjoy Rudolph Valentino.'

'I doubt it,' she said. 'I think my romping days are over.'

'Never!' I cried. 'You might as well be dead!'

'Romping isn't everything.'