Nutts. I don’t know how it is, I’ve often thought of it; but somehow—I’ve observed the circumstance to Mrs Nutts—somehow the female mind seems to gain courage at watering-places. A young thing that won’t raise a eyelid in London, will meet you like the full moon at the seaside.
Tickle. Well, I’ve often thought of that too. Somehow or other the sea air does harden ’em. Now, Mr Peabody, you who was a schoolmaster afore you was a policeman, can you, who knows everything—can you explain it?
Peabody. Why, the female mind is naturally susceptible——
Nutts. That’s what Mrs Nutts said, when on one occasion she would have a pint of peas at five shillings.
Peabody. And sympathises with external nature. The female mind, too, often confined to the limits of a slop-basin, feels itself grow and expand in presence of the universal deep. A woman who may be no better than a doll in London, shall be a first-rate philosopher at Broadstairs.
Nutts. Humph! Like young ducks; don’t know all their strength till they take to the water.
Peabody. But it all goes off with the season.
Nutts. I’m glad of that. Mrs Nutts, as you know, is a woman of strong mind; nevertheless, she must come back to the slop-basin.
Slowgoe. So I see that Cobden has been in France. Wanting to stir up a free trade in frogs, I s’pose. But they’re not such fools; they won’t give up pertecting their native produce like us. He says in his speech to the Frenchmen, “I am not a propagandist.” Now what does he mean by that?
Peabody. Why, that he doesn’t want to preach free trade to the French.