“As if I could help it,” he said, half aloud. “A man has his work to do, and he must do it.”
“Five o’clock’s tea-time, and you ought to have been here.”
“And if I wasn’t here, it was your dooty to wait for me, marm.”
“Was it?” cried Sally; “then I wasn’t going to. I’m not going to be ordered about and ill-treated, Jem; you always said you liked your tea ready at five o’clock. I had it ready at five o’clock, and I waited till half-past, and it’s now five-and-twenty to six.”
“I don’t care if it’s five-and-twenty to nineteen!” cried Jem angrily. “It’s your dooty to wait, same as it’s mine to shut up.”
“You might have shut up after tea.”
“Then I wasn’t going to, marm.”
“Then you may have your tea by yourself, for I’ve done, and I’m not going to be trampled upon by you.”
Sally had risen in the loudness of her voice, in her temper, and in her person, for she had got up from her chair; but neither elevation was great; in fact, the personal height was very small, and there was something very kittenish and comic in her appearance, as she crossed the bright little kitchen to the door at the flight of stairs, and passing through, banged it behind her, and went up to her room.
“Very well,” said Jem, as he sat staring at the door; “very well, marm. So this is being married. My father used to say that if two people as is married can’t agree, they ought to divide the house between ’em, but one ought to take the outside and t’other the in. That’s what I’m a-going to do, only, seeing what a bit of a doll of a thing you are, and being above it, I’m going to take the outside myself. There’s coffee bags enough to make a man a good bed up in the ware’us, and it won’t be the first time I’ve shifted for myself, so I shall stop away till you fetches me back. Do you hear?”