“How can we go? I don’t know. It’s you who ought to know, for you are a man and you have a grammar-master.”
This piqued George who replied that one might be a man, and even a very brave man, and yet not know all the roads on earth. Whereupon Honey-Bee said drily with a little air of scorn which made him blush to his ears:
“I never said I would conquer the blue mountains or take down the moon. I don’t know the way to the lake, but I mean to find it!”
George pretended to laugh.
“You laugh like a cucumber.”
“Cucumbers neither laugh nor cry.”
“If they did laugh they would laugh like you. I shall go along to the lake. And while I search for the beautiful waters in which the nixies live you shall stay alone at home like a good girl. I will leave you my needle-work and my doll. Take care of them, George, take good care of them.”
George was proud, and he was conscious of the humiliation with which Honey-Bee covered him.
Gloomily and with head bowed he cried in a hollow voice:
“Very well, then, we will go to the lake.”