the slip is from a household pad of fifty leaves, of which this is the third-to-last. it was filled in by a hand not P.'s — a hand which spelled Mr. without the full stop and which abandoned the telephone number partway through. the number was not entirely caught and would not, in this house, be guessed at; the writer's policy on telephone messages is: take it down, then leave it alone.
the message sat on the hall table from a quarter to three until twenty past seven, by which time the writer had gone out and P. had come in and the telephone had rung again, briefly, and had not been answered. P. read the slip slowly. said you'd know what about, it ended; and she did, although she did not say what.