‘You put poison in the teapot? For me?’ The Uncle suddenly sat down.
‘No, no, dear uncle,’ cried Caroline; ‘not poison. Only calceolaria and eschscholtzia and straw and rhododendron; it isn’t poison. It’s just a little magic spell to make you say “Yes” to what we want.’
‘Have I given you reason to suppose that I could not grant your requirements without spells?’ he asked severely.
‘Oh no! But we wanted to make sure.’
Charlotte held out the translation and the Uncle read it.
‘But this doesn’t say calceolaria and all the rest of it,’ he objected.
‘No, it doesn’t say. That’s just it. So we had to get the nearest things we could. Straw for agreement, because we want you to agree to what we want; and calceolaria, because it means “I offer you pecuniary aid”; and rhododendron to show it’s dangerous not to; and es-what’s-its-name for “do not refuse me.”’
‘Do not refuse you what?’ said the Uncle in an exasperated voice.
The three of them looked at each other and two of them said, ‘You tell, Caro.’