Without a word of explanation he led the way home; without a word he set her down at the dining-room table with paper and ink before her, and sat down himself on the opposite side of it, a dictionary in his hand and Wiggins by his side.
Then he said coldly: "Now don't make any blots, or you'll have to do it all over again." "I never make blots! It's you that makes blots!" cried Erebus, ruffled.

"Mr.Etheridge says I write ever so much better than you do.
Ever so much better." "That's why you're writing the letter and not me," said the Terror coldly.

"Fire away: 'My dear Aunt Amelia'-- I say, Wiggins, what's the proper words for 'awfully keen' ?" "'Keen' is 'interested'-- I don't know how many 'r's' there are in 'interested'-- and 'awfully' is an awfully difficult word," said Wiggins, pondering.
The Terror looked up "interested" in the dictionary with a laborious painfulness, and announced triumphantly that there was but a single "r" in it; then he said, "What's the right word for 'awfully,' Wiggins?
Buck up!" "'Tremendously,'" said Wiggins with the air of a successful Columbus.
"That's it," said the Terror.

"'My dear Aunt Amelia: I have often heard that you are tremendously interested in cats' homes'"-- "I should think you had!" said Erebus.
"Now don't jabber, please; just stick to the writing," said the Terror.
"I've got to make this letter a corker; and how can I think if you jabber ?" Erebus made a hideous grimace and bent to her task.
"'Little Deeping wants a cats' home awfully'-- no: 'tremendously.' I like that word 'tremendously'; it means something," said the Terror.
"You're jabbering yourself now," said Erebus unpleasantly.
Ruffling his fair hair in the agony of composition, the Terror continued: "'The quantity of kittens that are drowned is horrible'-- that ought to fetch her; kittens are so much nicer than cats--'and I have been thinking'-- Oughtn't you to put in some stops ?" "I'm putting in stops--lots," said Erebus contemptuously.
"'I have been thinking--that if you wanted to have a cats' home here'-- What's the right word for 'running a thing,' Wiggins ?" Wiggins frowned deeply; a number of his freckles seemed to run into one another.
"There is a word 'overseer'-- slaves have them," he said cautiously.
The Terror sought that word painfully in the dictionary, spelled it out, and continued: "'I could overseer it for you.

I have got my eye on a building which would suit us tremendously well.