'Come up with us till it stops'--'You mustn't get any wetter just now'--'Or you'll be too wet'--'The only safe way is to get dry'--'In between'--'At the stove'--'We're so dull'--'We've no one to talk to; do come'--'Oh, but do'--'Well, anyhow, take the umbrella'--'We shan't want it; we never go out in the wet'--'We should hate to.' The entirety of the failure of it all had pathos. Significance seemed to be suddenly brought by that failure into the fact that while three members of the Venables family had long been familiar with the room at the top of the pinkish house, the fourth had never set foot on the lowest of the stone stairs. Tweedledum and Tweedledee went up to their room in silence. It was then that the room seemed newly to become an impression to them; it was as if it had broken through barriers and suddenly pierced their senses. Their melancholy eyes took it in--a certain tawdriness it had, the litter of things incongruous: on the table a scattered pack of dingy cards; bottles and glasses, unwashed from last night, making red sticky circles on _Marchese Peppino_; everywhere was _Marchese Peppino_: one could not escape from it. From the half-painted, absurd ceiling to the stone floor stale air brooded, breathing of smoke and wine. Betty thought suddenly of cold, rarefied air, with a faint smell of paint, and winter sunshine striking in through open windows. Tommy said an odd thing, a thing it is possible he had never said before. 'W-what a beastly mess!' Then he shoved a space for himself on the table, among glasses and papers, and began to make pictures for _Marchese Peppino_. It was about this time, early in March, that the Crevequers took to quarrelling. It was a thing not usual with them, because they liked, of all things, a pleasant harmony. Rows, as they observed, made them feel ill. But at this time they developed a new touchiness; possibly Lent was partly accountable. Tommy wrangled with his editor, disputed truculently with the good-tempered Luli, assumed a mien of impertinent defiance towards his more urgent creditors, and snapped at Betty, who snapped back, and then they would stammer rude and unpleasant comments on each other for a minute or two--it took them longer to quarrel than it takes people who can fling their remarks unhaltingly straight from the lips--until one or other was ashamed and said: 'D-dry up.' They quarrelled once about _Marchese Peppino_. Betty referred to it to Warren Venables, who, as usual, did not pursue the subject with enthusiasm. When Venables had left them, Tommy, sitting on the table with his hands in his pockets, looked down at his sister rather moodily. 'Wish you'd let my shop alone, Betty. Venables doesn't care a hang about it--can't you see?' The surprise in Betty's melancholy eyes testified to the rarity of the ill-tempered tone; particularly it was rare from one of them to the other. 'Well--what does it matter, though?' Tommy was frowning.