"Certainly, I spoke quite clearly. He reflected for a moment, scratched his head, and said, 'First turning to the right, One Tree Cottage.' 'That is correct,' I said. 'One Tree Cottage is the foolish and fantastic name they mentioned to me, now I come to think of it.' So you see here I am, and I must say that you and your cottage are worse than I anticipated."
"Worse!" Dimbie ejaculated.
"Yes, you and your wife are still at it, the love-making. I thought you would be getting over it by now. And your cottage—isn't it below the sea level? It looks to me as though it might have been built on drained marsh land, originally a swamp." He spoke in the same cheerful, detached manner as when he first scraped acquaintance with us in the wood.
"We are two hundred feet above the level of the sea," said Dimbie with as much pride as if he had had a hand in the manufacture of the earth's surface. "A valley does not necessarily mean below the sea level, as you must know."
The Professor laughed.
"But isn't it extremely damp and insanitary, covered over with that weed?"
"That weed is clematis."
"Oh!" said the Professor. "I should root it up, all the same."
"But Marg—my wife and I almost took the cottage on the strength of it."
"A foolish reason. Did you look into your drains, young man?"