Dodo poured the milk into two clean saucers, and set them on the floor. There were a few drops left at the bottom of the jug, and she made a neat little pool on the head of each of the dogs.
"What are their names?" she asked. "They ought to be Tweedledum and Tweedledee, or Huz and Buz, or Ananias and Sapphira, or Darby and Joan, or Harris and Ainsworth. It ought to be Harris and Ainsworth. I'm sure, no one man could have written all that rot himself. Little Spencer is very fond of Harrison Ainsworth; he said it was instructive as well as palatable. I don't want to be instructed, and it isn't palatable. I hate having little bits of information wrapped up and given to me to swallow, like a powder in jam. Did you have to take powders when you were little, Lady Grantham?"
Dodo's questions were purely rhetorical; they required no answer, and she did not expect one.
"It is much nicer being completely ignorant and foolish like me," she said. "Nobody ever expects me to know anything, or to be instructive on any subject under the sun. Jack and I are going to be a simple little couple, who are very nice and not at all wise. Nobody dislikes one if one never pretends to be wise. But I like people to have a large number of theories on every subject. Everyone is bound to form conclusions, but what I dislike are people who have got good grounds for their conclusions, who knock you slap down with statistics, if you try to argue with them. It's impossible to argue with anyone who has reasons for what he says, because you get to know sooner or later, and then the argument is over. Arguments ought to be like Epic poems, they leave off, they don't come to an end."
Dodo delivered herself of these surprising statements with great rapidity, and left the room to get her cigarettes. She left the door wide open, and in a minute or two her voice was heard from the drawing-room, screaming to Edith.
"Edith, here's the 'Dodo Symphony'; come and play it to me this moment."
"There's not much wrong with her this morning," thought Edith, as she went to the drawing-room, where Dodo was playing snatches of dance music.
"Play the scherzo, Edith," commanded Dodo. "Here you are. Now, quicker, quicker, rattle it out; make it buzz."
"Oh, I remember your playing that so well," said Dodo, as Edith finished. "It was that morning at Winston when you insisted on going shooting. You shot rather well, too, if I remember right."
Lady Grantham had followed Edith, and sat down, with her atmosphere of impenetrable leisure, near the piano.