"Oh, much bigger."
"Bigger than yours?"
"I haven"t got a garden."
Margery looked at me wonderingly. She opened her mouth to speak, and then stopped and rested her head upon her hands and thought out this new situation. At last, her face flushed with happiness, she announced her decision.
"Go on telling me about Beauty and the Beast now," she said breathlessly, "and _then_ tell me why you haven"t got a garden."
My average time for Beauty and the Beast is ten minutes, and, if we stop at the place where the Beast thought he was dead, six minutes twenty-five seconds. But, with the aid of seemingly innocent questions, a determined character can make even the craftiest uncle spin the story out to half-an-hour.
"Next time," said Margery, when we had reached the appointed place and she was being tucked up in bed, "will you tell me _all_ the story?"
Was there the shadow of a smile in her eyes? I don"t know. But I"m sure it will be wisest next time to promise her the whole thing. We must make that point clear at the very start, and then we shall get along.
VII. THE LITERARY ART
Margery has a pa.s.sion for writing just now. I can see nothing in it myself, but if people _will_ write I suppose you can"t stop them.
"Will you just lend me your pencil?" she asked.
"Remind me to give you a hundred pencils some time," I said as I took it out, "and then you"ll always have one. You simply eat pencils."
"Oo, I gave it you back last time."
"Only just. You inveigle me down here----"
"What do I do?"
"I"m not going to say that again for anybody."
"Well, may I have the pencil?"
I gave her the pencil and a sheet of paper, and settled her in a chair.
"B-a-b-y," said Margery to herself, planning out her weekly article for the Reviews. "B-a-b-y, baby." She squared her elbows and began to write....
"There!" she said, after five minutes" composition.
The ma.n.u.script was brought over to the critic, and the author stood proudly by to point out subtleties that might have been overlooked at a first reading.
"B-a-b-y," explained the author. "Baby."
"Yes, that"s very good; very neatly expressed. "Baby"--I like that."
"Shall I write some more?" said Margery eagerly.
"Yes, do write some more. This is good, but it"s not long enough."
The author retired again, and in five minutes produced this:
B A B Y
"That"s "baby,"" explained Margery.
"Yes, I like that baby better than the other one. It"s more spread out.
And it"s bigger--it"s one of the biggest babies I"ve seen."
"Shall I write some more?"
"Don"t you write anything else ever?"
"I like writing "baby,"" said Margery carelessly. "B-a-b-y."
"Yes, but you can"t do much with just that one word. Suppose you wanted to write to a man at a shop--"Dear Sir, You never sent me my boots.
Please send them at once as I want to go out this afternoon. I am yours faithfully, Margery"--it would be no good simply putting "B-a-b-y,"
because he wouldn"t know what you meant."
"Well, what _would_ it be good putting?"
"Ah, that"s the whole art of writing--to know what it would be any good putting. You want to learn lots and lots of new words, so as to be ready. Now here"s a jolly little one that you ought to meet." I took the pencil and wrote G O T. "Got. G-o-t, got."
Margery, her elbows on my knee and her chin resting on her hands, studied the position.
"Yes, that"s old "got,"" she said.
"He"s always coming in. When you want to say, "I"ve got a bad pain, so I can"t accept your kind invitation"; or when you want to say, "Excuse more, as I"ve got to go to bed now"; or quite simply, "You"ve got my pencil.""
"G-o-t, got," said Margery. "G-o-t, got. G-o-t, got."
"With appropriate action it makes a very nice recitation."
"Is that a "g"?" said Margery, busy with the pencil, which she had s.n.a.t.c.hed from me.
"The gentleman with the tail. You haven"t made his tail quite long enough.... That"s better."
Margery retired to her study charged with an entirely new inspiration, and wrote her second manifesto. It was this:
G O T
"Got," she pointed out.
I inspected it carefully. Coming fresh to the idea Margery had treated it more spontaneously than the other. But it was distinctly a "got." One of the gots.