“Then no wonder nothing has come out! You have drawn out the wrong shutter each time, and the plates have never been exposed. They are wasted! That’s fivepence simply thrown away, to say nothing of the chemicals!”
His air of aggrieved virtue; Peggy’s little face staring at him, aghast with horror; the thought of four plates being used and leaving not a vestige of a result, were all too funny to be resisted. Mellicent went off into irrepressible giggles; Max gave a loud “Ha, ha!” and once again a mischievous whisper sounded in Peggy’s ear—
“Good for you, Mariquita! What about the ‘conversational annotations’?”
Chapter Eight.
Peggy shows herself in her True Colours.
The photographic fever burnt fiercely for the next few weeks. Every spare hour was devoted to the camera, and there was not a person in the house, from the vicar himself to the boy who came in to clean boots and knives, who had not been pressed to repeated sittings. There were no more blank plates, but there were some double ones which had been twice exposed, and showed such a kaleidoscopic jumble of heads and legs as was as good as any professional puzzle; but, besides these, there were a number of groups where the likenesses were quite recognisable, though scarcely flattering enough to be pleasant to the originals. There was quite a scene in the dining-room on the evening when Oswald came down in triumph and handed round the proofs of the first presentable group, over which he had been busy all the afternoon.
“Oh, oh, oh! I’m an old woman, and I never knew it!” cried Mrs Asplin, staring in dismay at the haggard-looking female who sat in the middle of the group, with heavy, black shadows on cheeks and temple. The vicar cast a surreptitious glance in the glass above the sideboard, and tried to straighten his bent shoulders, while Mellicent’s cheeks grew scarlet with agitation, and the tears were in her voice, as she cried—
“I look like a p–p–pig! It’s not a bit like! A nasty, horrid, fat, puffy pig!”