THE TOWER OF MYSTERY
enough for it. She was rough if you like. She also used language I should have thought she would be above. She said, "Drat you!" and "Drabbit you!" The last is a thing I have never heard said before. She said:
"There's no peace of your life with you children. Drat your antics! And that poor, dear, patient gentleman right underneath, with his headache and his handwriting: and you rampaging about over his head like young bull-calves. I wonder you haven't more sense, a great girl like you."
She said this to Alice, and Alice answered gently, as we are told to do:
"I really am awfully sorry; we forgot about the headache. Don't be cross, Mrs. Pettigrew; we didn't mean to; we didn't think."
"You never do," she said, and her voice, though grumpy, was no longer violent. "Why on earth you can't take yourselves off for the day I don't know."
We all said, "But may we?"
She said, "Of course you may. Now put on your boots and go for a good long walk. And I'll tell you what—I'll put you up a snack, and you can have an egg to your tea to make up for missing your dinner. Now don't go clattering about the stairs and passages, there's good children. See if you can't be quiet this once, and give the good gentleman a chance with his copying."
She went off. Her bark is worse than her bite. She does not understand anything about writing books, though. She thinks Albert's uncle copies
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