Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/96

Rh sale for them, formed a poor setting for an almost domestic scene.

"I wish we could get it off," Lucilla said. "I can't think how anyone could paint old oak such a colour—or any colour for that matter. Look how lovely the insides of the cupboard doors are. I wish we could get it off. What do you get paint off with?"

They asked Mrs. Doveton, and she answered with unexpected cynicism that the stuff they sell to clean it generally does the trick. "In time," she added, as one desiring to be fair to an enemy. "If you wanted it off sudden I should soak in soda and scrape."

There are difficulties about soaking four walls still occupying a vertical position. But our young enthusiasts bought some soda and a paint-brush and painted the door of the corner cupboard with a strong solution of soda. Then they scraped with Lucilla's palette-knife, and the paint came off—some of it. Some of it, on the other hand, did not come off. The effect was speckled and streaked, the old oak showing through the half vanquished paint like brown mould under thinly-sown new grass.

"How perfectly awful!" said Lucilla. "I do wish we hadn't."

"Never regret, never apologise, never explain," Jane quoted.

"Who said that?"

"I said it. But someone else said it first. Napoleon or Socrates or Machiavelli or someone. It does look pretty ghastly," she owned; "unless we can do something to get the rest of it off we shall have to paint it again."

"Suppose our landlord comes back from his castle in Spain while it's looking like that? He'll turn us out as sure as fate."

"Paint it with soda again," said Jane, "and we'll try again to-morrow."

This was on the Wednesday, and in the afternoon Mr. Simmons called "to see if the board was holding up."