"How can you tell that?"
"I can tell it by his style, which is very severe and uncompromising."
"His style," I said, "is as the statute made it, and mustn't be impugned by us."
"I particularly like that bit about plashing the trees. How in the name of all that's English do you plash a tree?"
"If," I said, "you were a fountain and wanted to be poetical, you would plash, instead of splashing."
"That's nonsense," she said.
"No," I said, "it's poetry."
"But you don't pour poetry on overhanging trees. It must mean something else."
"I'll tell you what; we'll get a dictionary."
"Yes," she said, "you get it. I'm no good at dictionaries. I always find such a lot of fascinating words that I never get to the one I want."