"How silly you are. I don't want to see you spick and span, as if you were ready to be given away with a pound of tea." "Still, I don't see why I should alter my drumming----" "Oh, you are stupid! Of course you admire me!" "As he did. I see." "You seem to think that very funny." "Not a bit." "Then we are agreed. There is not much fun in our talk." "You're always so observant. There is not. Short sentences." "And a _soupçon_ of the unexpressed." "Which means so very much. When understood?" She swayed from one side to the other. There was an easterly wind blowing full from the open north door of the Arcade. I looked unhappy. There is an understanding that I shall look unhappy except when I am beating my tambourine with my drumsticks. "What was I saying before--before you--you know--oh, about our talk, of course, being rather flat and not very profitable?" "I have no more to say," said I. "But he was very angry, for in my fall I broke his nose." "I have a bad nose, too." "What's the matter with your nose?" asked the Rag Doll smiling. "The joint is injured and some of the fur has come off my head--in fact, I am as bald as the ball of an eighteen-penny bagatelle-board," and I contrived (with the assistance of the draught) to roll away a little. "You find carriage exercise good for your poor nose?" bubbled the Rag Doll. Now when the Rag Doll bubbles--an operation which includes a sudden slipping down the shelf, the lighting up of glass eyes, a dart of a kid-covered arm with vague fingers, and a gurgling gust of slipping drapery--I am in the habit of ceasing to argue the question. "Well, your fall will not damage the machinery. You have nothing to do but look--you understand. While I have to beat my tambourine with my drumsticks." "But I won't fall upon you. I reserved my weight for the warrior that was once valued at five shillings and is now reduced to half-a-crown." "Because you--educated him?" "Yes. And now he cuts me dead! Why he will be bought by some one with poorer means, and will be all the more appreciated." "Of course you did not care for the impoverished soldier?" "Not a little bit." "Nor any one else?" "Oh, well----" Then I repeated the question several times in such a way that if written a line of space would be given to every query. It was a notion of ALEXANDRE DUMAS _père_ to do the same in his novels. And his sentences were worth a franc a line. At least, so it has been related. The Rag Doll looked straight in front of her. "Hullo, old chappie," I said to myself; "where did you spring from?" "Why, it's my proprietor!" said the Rag Doll, ceasing to bubble, and becoming all propriety. The toy merchant took no notice of what we had said. How could he when our voices were inaudible? But he dusted us with his feather-brush, and left us ready for another dialogue. For all that the Rag Doll didn't think he was coming just then. No more did I. * * * * *