She looked up from her writing with a passing flash of curiosity, and said, "What are they going to do with it ?"--meaning, I suppose, the head.

I answered that it was to be privately buried, after photographs of it had first been taken.

I even went the length of communicating the opinion of the surgeon consulted, that some chemical means of arresting decomposition had been used and had only partially succeeded--and I asked her point-blank if the surgeon was right?
The trap was not a bad one--but it completely failed.

She said in the coolest manner, "Now you are here, I should like to consult you about my play; I am at a loss for some new incidents." Mind! there was nothing satirical in this.

She was really eager to read her wonderful work to me--evidently supposing that I took a special interest in such things, because my brother is the manager of a theatre! I left her, making the first excuse that occurred to me.
So far as I am concerned, I can do nothing with her.