A CANARY FOR ONE. To my little freckle-faced brother.

And gave a nickel

To my little freckle-faced brother.

He kissed me on Thursday

At quarter to 10.

Then met me on Friday

And kissed me again.

And what d'you think happened

On Saturday night?

That's right,

We met a preacher.

That's right.

THE DINNER PARTY

by Nicolas Monsarrat

NIKOLAS MONSARRAT, in full NIKOLAS JOHN TURNEY MONSARRAT (bom March 22, 1910, Liverpool, England - died August 8, 1979, London) is a popular English novelist whose best-known work, " The Cruel Sea ", vividly captured life aboard a small ship in wartime. Monsarrat took a bachelor's degree in law at Trinity College, Cambridge, and then spent two years in a solicitor's office. His first book, " Think of Tomorrow", appeared in 1934, but he had not fully established his reputation when World War II broke out. From 1940 to 1946 he served with the Royal Navy, chiefly on the dangerous Atlantic convoy runs. He afterwards put his experiences aboard ship to brilliant account, first in " H.M. Corvette" (1942) and then in " The Cruel Sea" (1951). The latter novel became a huge bestseller, also made into a successful film. Monsarrat died before completing what he considered his major work. " The Master Mari­ner", a projected three-volume novel of seafaring life from Napole­onic times to the present, the first part appeared in 1978 and the second (unfinished) after his death.

There are still some rich people in the world; and there were very many more, in the enjoyable world of thirty years ago. I hope that no one wiil be led astray by the fiction that rich people lead dull, boring and frustrated lives; compelled to listen to unintelligible chamber music every other night, to sit through interminable operas which they do not understand, to bow unwill­ingly to royalty and to force down their gullets such dietary dross¹ as pate de foie gras², trout in aspic, and champagne.

Please be assured that many of them lead lives of particular pleasure; commanding the finest artists to play and sing exactly what they wish to hear, greeting royalty on terms of pleasure and intimacy, and eating and drinking precisely what they want — often pate de foie gras, trout in aspic, and champagne.

But rich people do have their problems. They are seldom problems of finance, since most rich people have sufficient sense to hire other people to take care of their worries — whether they are concerned with taxes, poli­tics, the education of their children, the estrangement of their wives, or the greed of their servants.