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Walpole, Hugh, Sir, 1884-1941

"The Captives"

"To be honest, I only read a bit of it--I don't
know what it's about. I think it's downright silly."
This book bore the mysterious title of "Dredinger." It was concerned
apparently with the experiences of a young man who, buying an empty
house in Bloomsbury, discovered a pool of water in the cellar. The
young man was called Dredinger, which seemed to Maggie an unnatural
kind of name. He had an irritating habit of never finishing his
sentences, and the people he knew answered him in the same
inconclusive fashion. The pool in the cellar naturally annoyed him,
but he did nothing very practical about it, allowed it to remain
there, and discussed it with a Professor of Chemistry. Beyond this
Maggie could not penetrate. The young man was apparently in love
with a lady much older than himself, who wore pince-nez, but it was
an arid kind of love in which the young man discovered motives and
symptoms with the same dexterous surprise with which he discovered
newts and tadpoles in the cellar-pond. Maggie bravely attacked Mr.
Magnus.
"Why didn't he have men in to clear up the pond and lay a new
floor?" she asked.


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