Randolph reached for his trousers, as they hung on a lower branch of one of the basswoods. "Oh, a good three-quarters of an hour."
"That's time enough, and to spare. I wonder whom we're going to meet."
"There's a 'usual crowd': the three young ladies, commonly; one or two young men who understand how to tinker the oil-stove—which usually needs it—and how to prime the pump. They once asked me to do these things; but I've discovered that younger men enjoy it more than I do, so I let them do it. Besides these, a number of miscellaneous people, perhaps, who come out by trolley or in their own cars."
"The young ladies always come?" asked Cope, brushing the sand from his chest.
"Usually. Together. The Graces. Otherwise, what becomes of the Group?"
"Well, I hope there'll be enough fellows to look after the stove and the pump—and them. I'm not much good at that last."
"No?"
"There's a knack about it—a technique—that I don't seem to possess.
Nor do I seem greatly prompted to learn it."
"Of course, there is no more reason for assuming that every man will make a good lover than that every woman will make a good mother or a good housekeeper."
"Or that every adult male will make a good citizen, desiring the general welfare and bestirring himself to contribute his own share to it. I don't feel that I'm an especially creditable one."