'Now, Stella, don't sham. You wouldn't forget them if they were very good reasons.'
'What nonsense! the better they are the more completely they go under sometimes. Think what good reasons there are for being good, and things of that sort.'
'Now, I'm not going to be put off. You've often served me that trick. I ask you a question and you start a new quarry, and the night after I wake up thinking, "Stella never told me whether she still writes to Billy Stein," or whatever it may be. Why didn't you come?'
'Must you know?'
'Yes, certainly.'
'Well, as I was walking by the Torrens, I found a little palm-basket sewn up in the most cunning manner with a red worsted thread. I unpicked it, and out flew a little milk-white dove, crying: "Don't go to the Melbourne Cup, don't go to the Melbourne Cup!"'
'Well; I'll be hanged if ever I saw a girl that can make up a fib patter than you can when you like!'
'Now I know why you wanted to come into the garden—so that my mother shouldn't overhear you talking like a jockey.'
'Oh, that's all you know about the way jockeys talk! You never heard them. Besides, you know, you shouldn't tell a crammer.'
'It's not a crammer—it's a parable.'