“Well, climb over the bed,” Dolly would entreat, “I’m in such an important place.”
If Weenie were in a mild mood she would comply, and scramble across the bed to her set of drawers. But as a rule the sight of Dolly’s flushed cheeks and bent head used to act as an irritant upon her, and she would insist upon a passage being made for her.
“This is my room as much as yours,” she would say, “it’s not right for any one to block it up. I never do.”
“But there’s nowhere else to sit,” poor Dolly would say.
“Write your silly things on the dressing-table, then,” Miss Weenie would suggest.
Dolly could not explain to her how it was growing impossible for her to write well anywhere except on that ancient wash-stand.
“I’ve let you go past four times,” she would say, “and I will not move again. I believe you come up just on purpose. What do you want out of your drawer now?”
“Never you mind. Are you going to get up?”
“No, I am not,” and Dolly would sit hard on her chair and put her feet against the wall to brace [237] ]herself. And Weenie would push and struggle to get past, and try to tilt the chair.
And sometimes Dolly won and wrote on victorious, while Weenie climbed the bed.