The bolder Englishman (I am told) will write a love-chapter and
then go out, quite coolly, to dinner, but such goings on are
contrary to the Scotch nature; even the great novelists dared not.
Conceive Mr. Stevenson left alone with a hero, a heroine, and a
proposal impending (he does not know where to look). Sir Walter in
the same circumstances gets out of the room by making his love-
scenes take place between the end of one chapter and the beginning
of the next, but he could afford to do anything, and the small fry
must e'en to their task, moan the dog as he may. So I have yoked
to mine when, enter my mother, looking wistful.
'I suppose you are terrible thrang,' she says.
'Well, I am rather busy, but - what is it you want me to do?'
'It would be a shame to ask you.'
'Still, ask me.'
'I am so terrified they may be filed.'
'You want me to - ?'
'If you would just come up, and help me to fold the sheets!'
The sheets are folded and I return to Albert. I lock the door, and
at last I am bringing my hero forward nicely (my knee in the small
of his back), when this startling question is shot by my sister
through the key-hole-
'Where did you put the carrot-grater?'
It will all have to be done over again if I let Albert go for a
moment, so, gripping him hard, I shout indignantly that I have not
seen the carrot-grater.
'Then what did you grate the carrots on?' asks the voice, and the
door-handle is shaken just as I shake Albert.
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