“Blind, wasn’t I?” cut in Jude hurriedly.
“Blind you were,” said Tyler.
Jude grinned. Ratcliffe thought he had never met with a stranger couple than these two, especially Jude. Hanging on with the boathook, he contemplated the dirty, daring face whose fine, gray, long-lashed eyes were the best features.
“How old are you?” asked he, addressing it.
“Hundred an’ one,” said Jude. “Ask me another.”
“She’s fifteen and a bit,” said Tyler, “and as strong as a grown man.”
“I thought she was a boy,” said Ratcliffe.
“So I am,” said Jude. “Girls is trash. I’m not never goin’ to be a girl. Girls is snots!”
As if to prove her boyhood, she hung over the rail so that he feared any moment she might tumble.
“She’s a girl, right enough,” said Tyler as if they were discussing an animal, “but God help the skirts she ever gets into!”