negative of salt. To get non-salt with your egg, you must eat sugar with it, not only abstain from salt."

"You will get a remarkably nasty taste," remarked John.

"Dear John, nobody ever wronged you so much as to suggest that you would like nonsense. When was Leonardo born? And how old was he when he died? And how many golden crowns did Francis of France give him for the 'Gioconda'? Your mind is full of interesting facts. That is why you are so tedious. You are like the sand they used to put on letters, which instantly made it dry."

Berts got up.

"We will go and bathe again," he said, "and John shall remain on the beach and look older than the[Pg 75] rocks he sits among. The rocks by the way are old red sandstone. They will blossom as the rose when Granite John sits among them. His is the head on which all the beginnings of the world have come, and he is never weary. Dear me, if I was not a teetotaller I should imagine I was drunk. I think it is the sea. What a heavenly time the man who stole the 'Gioconda' must have had. He just took it away. I can imagine him going to the Abbey at the Coronation, and taking away the King's crown. There is genius, and it is also nonsense. It is pure nonsense to imagine going to the Louvre and taking 'la Gioconda' away."

[Pg 75]

"I wonder what he has done with it," said Nadine. "I think he must be a jig-saw puzzle maniac, and have felt compelled to cut it up. Probably the Louvre will receive bits of it by registered post. The nose will come, and then some rocks, and then a rather weary eyelid. I think John stole it: he was absorbed in jig-saw puzzles all morning. Now that seems to me nonsense."

"Wrong again," said Berts. "When it is put together it is sense. If people cut up the pictures and then threw the bits away, it might be nonsense. But they keep the pieces and these become the picture again."

"The process of cutting it up is nonsense," said Nadine.

"Yes, and the process of putting it together is nonsense," said Esther.

"And the two make sense," said Berts. "Let's[Pg 76] go and bathe. Nadine, take down some proper book, and read to us in the intervals."

[Pg 76]

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