"I have," admitted the effigy, "seen a waiter sorely vexed to bring the materials for a salad—"
"Aha!" cried I, triumphantly.
"Gomen nasai," begged the deity, "I had not finished. I have seen a waiter, I say, sorely vexed to bring the materials for a salad which the maker has—spoiled!"
"Then," demanded I, with icy coldness, "you think that if I permit Them to supply a few thoughts to carry Them over the dashes They will—"
"Think something you did not think; perhaps something worse," the effigy finished, calamitously.
"Or better?" I suggested, bitterly.
"Or better," agreed the god. "There is a small number of people (but, extremely small) who like to supply in full what you suggest in dashes. It tickles Them tremendously to think that you couldn't have done it so well; that you trust Them to do it better. Often They are certain that They have helped you over a place you could not help yourself over—hence the dash."
"Sometimes," I mused, diffidently, "that is true."
"Ha, ha!" laughed the image, and our mood became more human.
"But, do you mean to say," I asked, "that if I leave John and Jane in the upper hall, and take them up again in the lower hall, I must acquaint Them with the fact that John and Jane have been obliged to traverse the stairway to get away from the one and to reach the other? Am I permitted no ellipsis in so patent a matter as that?"