three at the most, “and pink bunches of roses come flying out of your window into the High Street, even my poor wits, small as they are, are equal to drawing the conclusion that you are cutting roses out of curtains. Your well-known fondness for dress did the rest. With your permission, Diva, I intend to draw exactly what conclusions I please on every occasion, including this one.”
“Ho! That’s how you got the idea then,” said Diva. “I knew you had cribbed it from me.”
“Cribbed?” asked Miss Mapp, in ironical ignorance of what so vulgar and slangy an expression meant.
“Cribbed means taking what isn’t yours,” said Diva. “Even then, if you had only acted in a straightforward manner—”
Miss Mapp, shaken as with palsy, regretted that she had let slip, out of pure childlike joy, in irony, the manner in which she had obtained the poppy-notion, but in a quarrel regrets are useless, and she went on again.
“And would you very kindly explain how or when I have acted in a manner that was not straightforward,” she asked with laborious politeness. “Or do I understand that a monopoly of cutting up chintz curtains for personal adornment has been bestowed on you by Act of Parliament?”
“You knew I was meaning to make a frock with chintz roses on it,” said Diva. “You stole my idea. Worked night and day to be first. Just like you. Mean behaviour.”
“It was meaner to give that frock to Janet,” said Miss Mapp.
“You can give yours to Withers,” snapped Diva.
“Much obliged, Mrs. Plaistow,” said Miss Mapp.
Diva had been watching Janet’s retreating figure, and
