The trifles they wanted 'mentioned' were innumerable--the other trifles they didn't want mentioned, were quite as endless.

One day there was a regular row--a sort of earthquake in the place.

Somebody had presumed to mention that the beautiful Mrs.Mushroom Ketchup had smoked several cigarettes with infinite gusto at a certain garden party,--now what are you laughing at, Miss Deane ?" "At the beautiful Mrs.Mushroom Ketchup!" and Mary's clear laughter rippled out in a silvery peal of purest merriment--"That's not her name surely!" "Oh no, that's not her name!" and Angus laughed too--"It wouldn't do to give her real name!--but Ketchup's quite as good and high-sounding as the one she's got.

And as I tell you, the whole 'staff' was convulsed.
Three shareholders came down post haste to the office--one at full speed in a motor,--and said how _dare_ I mention Mrs.Mushroom Ketchup at all?
It was like my presumption to notice that she had smoked! Mrs.Mushroom Ketchup's name must be kept out of the papers--she was a 'lady'! Oh, by Jove!--how I laughed!--I couldn't help myself! I just roared with laughter in the very faces of those shareholders! 'A lady!' said I--'Why, she's---- ' But I wasn't allowed to say what she was, for the shareholder who had arrived in the motor, fixed a deadly glance upon me and said--'If you value your po-seetion'-- he was a Lowland Scot, with the Lowland accent--'if you value your po-seetion on this paper, you'll hold your tongue!' So I did hold my tongue then--but only because I meant to wag it more violently afterwards.

I always devote Mrs.Mushroom Ketchup to the blue blazes, because I'm sure it was through her I lost my post.