"You've a fine notion of things, Jane," said Castleton. "By gad, if every mother were like you, what a race we should have."
"I'm not in a hurry for him to do anything."
"I meant what a race of Englishmen, not bicycles," Castleton explained.
"Oh, I see," said Jenny vaguely. He was taking her aspirations out of their depth.
"No, but I do think it's dreadful," she went on, "to see kids moping just because their mothers and fathers want them to stick at home. My mother wasn't like that. Yes, she used to go on at me, but she always wanted me to enjoy myself so long as she knew there was no harm in it."
"Your mother, Jane, must have been a great woman."
"I don't know about that, but she was a darling, and always very smart—you know, dressed very nice and had a good figure. But look at my father. He sends us a postcard sometimes with a picture of a bed or a bottle of Bass on it which is all he thinks about. And yet he's alive, and she's dead."
Finally Castleton promised that should young Frank display a spark of ambition, he would do his best to help him achieve it.
"Whatever it is," said Jenny. "Of course not if he wants to be a dustman, but anything that's all right."
Then, the morning being nearly spent, they turned back towards Bochyn. Castleton mounted on a slope at a run to pull Jenny up from above.