With a piercing scream of agony, he promptly gave Toffee over to the ground, where she landed with a resounding thump. "You little beast!" he cried, clutching his leg. "Of all the ingratitude!"
Toffee looked up owlishly from over her shoulder. "I told you to put me down," she said vindictively. "Surely, you didn't expect me to just hang there while you made finger prints all over my—"
"I was only trying to set you right," Marc cut in quickly.
"Hah!" Toffee jumped lightly to her feet. "From now on," she said, placing a slender hand on a sculptured hip, "I'll take care of my own setting, and don't you ever forget it."
"Do what you like with your precious setting," Marc put in, his irritation mounting. "See if I care. You can hurl the fool thing out the window for all of me."
"I wouldn't even tilt it over the sill for the best part of you," Toffee sneered. "Not after the torture you've been putting me through lately."
"I torture you!" Marc laughed bitterly. "That's good, that is!"
"Then what do you call it?" Toffee made a quick gesture that encompassed the whole of the valley. "How would you like to be locked up in this place months on end? The valley of your mind! Hah! The sump hole would be more like it. You haven't had an original thought in the last six months."
"You're so depraved," Marc said, rising to his own defense, "you wouldn't know an original thought if you saw one. And if you think I'm going to dedicate my days to the contemplation of smut, just for your sweet sake, you're mistaken. Just because you're nasty minded, doesn't mean the rest of us are."