Wavering over Waverley

The little scottie dog from Monopoly will not be persuaded to detatch itself from the photograph of my dear dead mother. I tried tempting it off by forming a tantalising trail of bouillon crystals from the photograph to my pantry, but to no avail.

This morning, to further test my hypothesis, which is so outrageous and unlikely that I am reluctant to articulate it here for fear that my readers will think me quite unhinged, I placed copies of several works by Sir Walter Scott on one side of the manteltop and a selection of novels by Stanley J. Weyman on the other, with the little scottie dog situated equidistantly between the two. Both collections of historical novels belonged to my dead mother, though she greatly preferred the works of Stanley J. Weyman, because she harboured a life-long hatred of the Scott Monument in Edinburgh.

I uttered the phrase, "Which will you, madame?" then left the room. At the end of the day I checked the mantel and discovered the dog, still attached to the photograph, had shifted 3cm towards the works of Stanley J. Weyman.

It all begins to fall into place.