“Well, you’re—you’re——” she began.
“I’m what?”
She looked him up and down.
“You’re a bow-leg man.”
Which he was. There was a roar of laughter. They loved her that she was indomitable.
“Ah,” said Marriott. “Only a pole-cat says that.”
“Well, I am a pole-cat,” she flamed.
There was another roar of laughter from the men.
They loved to tease her.
“Well, me little maid,” Braithwaite would say to her, “an’ how’s th’ lamb’s wool?”