"You'd look much nicer as a fireman, Harold," she said, coaxingly. "I wish I could be a fireman."
"Well, you can if you like," he answered, sullenly, looking round with a hunted expression for his mother, who unluckily for her son was in another part of the house arguing with Mrs. Worfolk about the sauce for the plum-pudding.
"But wouldn't you rather wear a pretty brass helmet?" Viola went on.
"No, I wouldn't," said Harold, desperately wrapping himself in the rubber tubes that was so temptingly conspicuous a portion of his equipment.
"Oh, you little idiot," Viola burst out, impatiently. "What's the good of your dressing up as a diver? In those goggles you always look like a diver."
"I don't, do I, Frida?" Harold implored.
Now Frida was happy with her dolls'-house; she had no reason to be loyal to Harold, who had always treated her shamefully; but the spirit of the squaw rose in her breast and she felt bound to defend the wigwam against outside criticism. Therefore she assured Harold that in ordinary life he did not look in the least like a diver.
"Well," Bertram announced, throwing aside the last pretense of respecting property, "V and I want that diver's dress, because we often act Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."
"Well, I can act Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea too."
"No you can't because you haven't read it."