In the following passage, which takes place close to halfway through the story, Mansfield satirizes London's literary and artistic elite, using lines of comic dialogue as well as names and references that border on the preposterous. In this way, she subtly pokes fun of Bertha's pretentious circle of friends:
"I met her at the Alpha show—the weirdest little person. [...]"
"Isn't she very liée with Michael Oat?"
"The man who wrote Love in False Teeth? "
"He wants to write a play for me. One act. One man. Decides to commit suicide. Gives all the reasons why he should and why he shouldn't. And just as he has made up his mind either to do it or not to do it—curtain. Not half a bad idea."
"What's he going to call it—'Stomach Trouble' ?"
"I think I've come across the same idea in a lit-tle French review, quite unknown in England.
As a writer with links to the European avant-garde at the turn of the 20th century, Mansfield may have interacted with groups like the Dadaists and Surrealists, known for their eccentric and sometimes outlandish artwork and public personas. Though "Michael Oat" is a fictional playwright, and Love in False Teeth a made-up play, they are offbeat enough to be mistaken for actual names from the era (such as Man Ray, the pioneering Dadaist visual artist, or Surrealist plays like the French dramatist Antonin Artaud's Jet of Blood). Bertha is clearly impressed with her friends' cultural savvy, though Mansfield is careful to show the absurdity in their interests. The one-man, one-act play they are discussing, while apparently meant to be perceived as profound, seems fairly trite—as evidenced by a mocking reply that seems to come from Harry, who attributes others’ problems and character flaws to health issues (“What’s he going call it—‘Stomach Trouble’”?). Even the language used in this conversation calls attention to the absurdity of Bertha's friends, who unnecessarily use French words like "liée" (to be tied or linked to something) to express simple ideas, clearly hoping to sound cultured and intelligent.
Here, Mansfield draws attention to the superficiality of Bertha’s social circle, who content themselves with displays of wit and surface-level patter meant to show off their connections to the artistic scene, in sharp contrast to Bertha herself. Though Bertha appears less educated or intellectual than her guests (and can come off as materialistic, too), she possesses a capacity for intense feeling that they clearly lack, even if they consider themselves well-read and insightful.
