Among the bundle of letters and MS. before me, I find written on a half sheet of note-paper the following Ollendorfian dialogue. It is interesting because, slight and trivial as it is, it in some strange way bears the imprint of Lewis Carroll’s style. The thing is written in the familiar violet ink, and neatly dated in the corner 29/9/90:—
“Let’s go and look at the house I want to buy. Now do be quick! You move so slow! What a time you take with your boots!”
“Don’t make such a row about it: it’s not two o’clock yet. How do you like this house?”
“I don’t like it. It’s too far down the hill. Let’s go higher. I heard a nice account of one at the top, built on an improved plan.”
“What does the rent amount to?”
“Oh, the rent’s all right: it’s only nine pounds a year.”
Over all matters connected with letter writing, Lewis Carroll was accustomed to take great pains. All letters that he received that were of any interest or importance whatever he kept, putting them away in old biscuit tins, numbers of which he kept for the purpose.
