Because she wouldn't have it. And there was an end of it. And so
on. And to prove it was all right. She poured herself out a cupful.
And drank it off. In a gulp. And she said there was nothing wrong
with it. Nothing whatever. And turned pale. And left the room.
"And it wasn't raspberry vinegar. But just red ink. What had got
put into the raspberry vinegar decanter. By an oversight. And they
needn't have been ill at all. If only they had listened. To poor
old Martha. But no. That was their fixed idea. That grown-ups
hadn't any sense. At all. What is a mistake. As one perceives."
Other characters had been sketched, some of them to be abandoned
after a few bold touches: the difficulty of avoiding too close a
portraiture to the living original having apparently proved irksome.
Against one such, evidently an attempt to help Dick see himself in
his true colours, I find this marginal, note in pencil: "Better not.
Might make him ratty." Opposite to another--obviously of Mrs. St.
Leonard, and with instinct for alliteration--is scribbled; "Too
terribly true. She'd twig it."
Another character is that of a gent: "With a certain gift. For
telling stories. Some of them NOT BAD." A promising party, on the
whole. Indeed, one might say, judging from description, a quite
rational person: "WHEN NOT ON THE RANTAN. But inconsistent." He is
the grown-up of a little girl: "Not beautiful.
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