The day after the honeymoon, Gypsy and Ginger decided that it was time to settle down. The five days since they had first met had been as unsettled as unsettling, but now that they were used to married life and to one another—“we must make up our minds,” said Gypsy, “to being humdrum for the rest of our days. There’s no escape. We must Keep House.” “Why?” said Ginger. “Before you’re married,” said Gypsy, “House keeps You. Afterwards You keep House. It’s a sort of moral obligation for past favours received.” “Bother,” said Ginger, “is it?” “’Fraid so,” said Gypsy; “and before we keep house we must discuss Ways and Means.” “Isn’t there a Ministry for that?” asked Ginger. “We might go to the Minister and discuss it with him.” “There isn’t one yet,” said Gypsy, “there won’t be one till the Householders’ Strike nearly comes off.” “Then let’s nearly strike,” said Ginger. “But we aren’t nearly Householders yet,” objected Gypsy; “which brings us back to the discussion of Ways and Means.”

They discussed Ways and Means. “I’ve often thought,” said Ginger, pulling reflectively at her single scarlet hair, “that I might be a Designer.”

“What of? Of what? Let Vivien alone, darling, she might come out, and it would be a lot of trouble putting her back in the same hole. Transplanting hairs isn’t as simple as it sounds. And there’s no money in it either, or we might go in for that. Of what?”

“What of what?” asked Ginger.

“Do you mean ‘what of—what’ or ‘what—of what?’” asked Gypsy.

“I don’t remember,” said Ginger.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. Let’s go back to our first subject. What would you design?”

“The dresses you see in Dry-Cleaners’ shop-windows,” said Ginger. “I often wonder who designs them, or how they think of them, or when they were in fashion. There’s the one in cherry-coloured plush, and the one with a bodice draped canary satin with a bright blue moirÉ sash and a deep lace flounce round the skirt; and there are the white ingenue ones, all specially designed for ingenues over thirty-five. But it must be an awfully difficult profession—I expect you have to be born with a natural gift for the wrong colours.”

“Then you’d better chuck it and think of something else,” said Gypsy, looking at her hair which had been born with a natural gift for the right colours. “But while you’ve been talking I’ve decided on my profession.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Invert gas-mantles.”

“Why?”

“Well, somebody has to. All the best gas-mantles are inverted nowadays. And it sounds a simple, even an artless job; I’m sure it lies within my scope.”

“What is a scope?” asked Ginger.

“Don’t be silly,” said Gypsy. “You must know what a scope is. You’ve got one of your own.”

“Sure?” said Ginger.

“Everybody has.”

“What for?”

“For things to lie within, of course.”

“Like a sea-chest? What sort of things—the things you so often see in the offing?”

“Oh, not nearly as many or as varied as those,” said Gypsy. “They’re simply legion. The things within one’s scope are frequently quite limited. But if you take another peep into yours, you might find something else.”

Ginger took another peep, and emerged triumphant.

“Well?” said Gypsy.

“I’ve found what I’m going to do. I’m going to trim coal.”

“How?”

“I shall have to find out. But coal is trimmed—there’s been a lot about Coal-Trimmers in the papers lately, and I should love it. There’s such a lot of effects to be done with black—you ask Mr. Heal. Think of little white frills, and scarlet ribbons, and bright green pom-poms—”

“I never saw my Mother’s coal come into the drawing-room looking like an African Beauty Chorus,” said Gypsy, getting jealous. “I don’t believe that’s how you trim coal at all. I believe what coal-trimmers do is to put all those little goldy bits in the lumps, and that must be frightfully hard.”

“The first time I saw the goldy bits,” said Ginger, “I was nine years old. And I thought all we’d got to do was to get them out with a nutpick, and our fortune would be made. And I got the Army and Navy Stores Catalogue and turned up the Oriental Section, and decided I’d have a Moorish lamp and a Benares tray, and a sandalwood box, and an octagonal coffee-stool inlaid mother-of-pearl, and some joss-sticks, and wear a pink veil with gold spangles, and lie on three striped cushions all day long, and eat Turkish Delight, and be like the Arabian Nights.”

“Then you’d got a jolly thin idea of the Arabian Nights,” said Gypsy. “What a lot you talk.”

“I choose nice things to talk about anyhow,” said Ginger, “not dull ones like upside-down gas-mantles.”

“I’m not going to turn gas-mantles upside-down any more,” said Gypsy. “It’s cruel, because they’re subject to apoplexy. I’ve been getting a better idea lately. I’m going to paint Still Life.”

“What sort of still life?”

“Quite a new line. I shall paint Wax-Fruit-Pieces, and Artificial-Flower-Pieces. It’s never been done.”

“Yes it has been,” said Ginger. “The Pavement Artists all do it. The profession’s absolutely overcrowded, and it’s the rottenest Way and Mean we’ve discussed yet. I’m tired of Ways and Means, because while I go one way you mean another, and if we can’t find some sort of tandem profession we might as well stop being married at once. Let’s go for a walk to Golder’s Green and give cocoanuts to the emus. I wonder what the weather’s like.”

“Go and look for yourself,” said Gypsy.

“I looked first thing this morning,” said Ginger. “Don’t be sulky. It’s your turn.”

Gypsy went outside and came in again, and said rather excitedly, “Squally and showery. What was it this morning when you looked?”

“Set fair,” said Ginger.

“Eureka!” said Gypsy.

“What does that mean?”

“Come and play marbles with the cocoanuts,” said Gypsy, “and I’ll tell you.”