'And a strong love interest,' said father, and he twinkled at me; 'even Dante——'
'Oh, daddy, must you bring in Dante?' I said. 'He was such a terrible old bore and he didn't even marry the girl.'
Uncle Jasper gazed at me as if I were a tame gorilla or a missing link, or something that looked as if it ought to have brains but somehow hadn't. 'Dear me!' he said. 'Well, go on, Meg, but if you merely make up your story as you go along you will get your background dim and confused and your characterisation weak.'
'I can't think what you mean,' I groaned.
'Why, Meg, if you lay your plot in the fourteenth century, for instance, your characters must be clear cut, mediæval, and tone with the background, don't you see? It would require a great deal of research to get the atmosphere of your century right.'
'But I shan't write about the fourteenth century,' I said in slow exasperation. 'My book will be about the present time. I shall write of the things I know.'
'Well, but what do you know, little 'un? That's what we are trying to get at,' said daddy, with his appalling habit of bringing things suddenly to a head.
'It's rather difficult to say offhand, father, but I know something of the fauna of the South Pole, and about Influenza (I've had it four times), and a lot about ski-ing——'
'If you could see yourself ski-ing you wouldn't say so,' said my brother with his usual candour, 'your methods are those of a Lilienfeldian wart-hog, and as for your Telemarks—ye gods!'
I ignored my brother and continued: 'My knowledge of flowers is extensive, and I know two bits of history and——'