SOME DAUGHTERS

y good Lady wife has drawn my attention to the fact that we still have a string of unmarried daughters, something of which I was already only too painfully aware. God only knows what they do all day except add to the victualling bill. When they were younger they were quite acceptable whenever Nanny brought them to see us, usually at Christmas and on their birthdays, but now that they are I imagine mostly in their thirties, I tend to bump into some of them once or twice a week meandering around the corridors at Crapulent Towers. I say bump into but in fact squeeze past might be more apt as they all seem to have inherited their mother's physical generosity. Isn't it strange that female corporeal pulchritude never seems to know its own boundaries. I suppose they must find it difficult keeping an eye on all their extremities.

I was hoping at one time that Sir Hugh Grossly-Featherstonehaugh, Bart., would take Norsia, the eldest, off our hands, but although I have given him quite specific instruction he doesn't seem to have got it right yet.

I recently called in at the offices of an illustrious publication, I can't remember offhand what it is called but the chairman of the board is an old acquaintance of mine. Actually I think I have a substantial shareholding in the enterprise. In any case I persuaded the Editor to take one of my daughters, Ekscreeta so my good lady wife reminds me, onto the staff. She is apparently always scribbling away at something or other so I thought it a good idea to get at least one of my offspring out of the way for at least some of the time. She might at any rate be able to clean the place up a little and get rid of the smell of stale coffee and the awful fug of the foreign cigarettes that they all seem to smoke. Morrocan I think they said they were.

When I returned to Crapulent Towers I immediately noticed by the level of my whisky decanter that we had had yet another visit from that wretched Irish quack O'Blatherty. He once even had the nerve to ask me if I kept any Irish - as if I would. The reason for his visit, as usual, was another of my daughters, Boleemia I am reliably informed, who decided some time ago to make it her life long quest to discover new medical complaints. Her form of research consists of thinking up some new condition and then deciding she has it. My good lady wife is continually summoning the doctor on her behalf, who leaves behind various pills and lotions for her so that her bedroom must now rival many pharmacies. That man must live on what he charges us and my Scotch.

Gonoria, the only other one of the brood whose name I can remember without referring to my good lady wife, is the one who causes us the most worry. She has taken to associating rather frequently with some of the common young girls in the village; actually very frequently, very common and very young, some of them just out of school. I am sure she is putting wrong ideas into their heads, no wonder I can't get hold of domestic staff. And why she needs to stay out all night with them down in the village when she has an ample bedroom with everything that money can buy here I simply can't imagine. I get some pretty old-fashioned looks from some of the locals.

We sent her to the best Public School, lavished everything we could upon her as a child, buying her a new dress every year and now when she is here she ambles around the place in old trousers and strange woollen garments of rather alarming hue and from all appearances without the structural support that a young lady of ample bosom should employ. Such is the gratitude of children.

I really ought to get to grips with my multitude of daughters. I don't suppose many fathers keep a strict account of when their offspring pop out. Whenever my good lady wife was about to give birth she became surrounded by a positive multitude of absolutely awful matrons so I always made myself pretty scarce I can tell you.