'Tea, please.'
'Sugar?'
'Sugar, please.'
'How many lumps?'
'Two will suffice.'
'I think you will find some grilled rabbit. Would you prefer buttered egg?'
'Thank you, rabbit,' said Mrs. Sidebottom. 'I will help myself.'
'I hope your room was comfortable. You must excuse us, we are all much upset in the house, servants as well as the rest. We have had a good deal to upset us of late, and when we are upset it upsets the servants too.'
Author: Now, there! Because we have dared to copy down, word for word, what was said at breakfast, our heroine has revealed herself as tautological. There were positively four upsets in that one little sentence. And we are convinced that if the reader had to express the same sentiment he or she would not be nice as to the literary form in which the sentence was couched, would not cast it thus—'We have been much upset; we have had much of late to disturb our equilibrium, and when we are thrown out of our balance then the servants as well are affected.' That would be better, no doubt, but the reader would not speak thus, and Salome did not.
The author must be allowed to exercise his judgment and give only as much of the conversation as is necessary, and not be obliged to record the grammatical slips, the clumsy constructions, the tedious repetitions that disfigure our ordinary conversation.