Mrs. Wimple lifted the cover of the laundry tub, which stood beside the sink, threw in the babies' “things,” turned on the hot water, and said:
“Better shave some laundry soap and throw it in, Ferd.”
“Heavens!” declared Mr. Wimple. “To expect a man of my temperament to do that!” But still he did not say that he would not do it.
“Someone has to do it,” contributed his wife.
“I never kicked on the dishes, Nell,” said Mr. Wimple. “But this, this is too much!”
“I have been doing it for ten days, ever since the maid left. I'm feeling rotten to-day, and you can take a turn at it, Ferd. My back hurts.” Still Mrs. Wimple was not unpleasant; but she was obviously determined.
“Your back!” sang Mr. Wimple, the minstrel, and shook his mane. “Your back hurts you! My soul hurts me! How could I go direct from that—that damnable occupation—that most repulsive of domestic occupations—that bourgeois occupation—to Mrs. Watson's tea this afternoon and deliver my message?”
A shimmer of heat (perhaps from her hair) suddenly dried up whatever dew of pleasantness remained in Mrs. Wimple's manner. “They're just as much your twins as they are mine,” she began... but just then one of them cried.
A fraction of a second later the other one cried.
Mrs. Wimple hurried from the kitchen and reached the living room in time to prevent mayhem. The twins, aged one year, were painfully entangled with one another on the floor. The twin Ronald had conceived the idea that perhaps the twin Dugald's thumb was edible, and was testing five or six of his newly acquired teeth upon it. Childe Dugald had been inspired by his daemon with the notion that one of Childe Ronald's ears might be detachable, and was endeavouring to detach it. The situation was but too evidently distressing to both of them, but neither seemed capable of the mental initiative necessary to end it. Even when little Ronald opened his mouth to scream, little Dugald did not remove the thumb.