Mrs. Wimple unscrambled them, wiped their noses, gave them rattles, rubber dolls, and goats to wreak themselves upon, and returned to the kitchen thinking (for she did not lack her humorous gleams) that the situation in the living room bore a certain resemblance to the situation in the kitchen. She and Ferdinand bit and scratched figuratively, but they had not the initiative to break loose from one another.
Mr. Wimple was shaving soap into the laundry tub, but he stopped when she entered and sang at her: “And why did the maid leave?”
“You know why she left, Ferd.”
“She left,” chanted Ferdinand, poking the twins' clothing viciously with a wooden paddle, “because...” But what Mr. Wimple said, and the way he said it, falls naturally into the freer sort of verse:
“She left [sang Mr. Wimple]
Because her discontent...
Her individual discontent,
Which is a part of the current general discontent
Of all the labouring classes...
Was constantly aggravated