Blanche, duster in hand, appeared at the doorway.
“Why doesn’t he go himself?” she asked.
“Because,” replied her father, getting very red, and speaking with elaborate care, “men’s subject to the infection and women is not.”
“That’s all my eye,” returned Millie. “Lots of women have got it.”
“It’s well known,” said Gosling, still keeping himself in hand, “a matter of common knowledge, that women is comparatively immune.”
“Oh, that’s a man’s yarn, that is,” said Blanche, “just to save themselves. We all know what men are—selfish brutes!”
“Are you going to fetch me that terbaccer or are you not?” shouted Mr Gosling suddenly.
“No, we aren’t,” said Millie, defiantly. “It isn’t safe for girls to go about the streets, let alone the risk of infection.” She had heard her father shout before, and she was not, as yet, at all intimidated.
“Well, then, I say you are!” shouted her father. “Lazy, good-for-nothing creatures, the pair of you! ’Oose paid for everything you’ve eat or drunk or wore ever since you was born? An’ now you won’t even go an errand.” Then, seeing the ready retort rising to his daughters’ lips, he grew desperate, and, advancing a step towards them, he said savagely: “If you don’t go, I’ll find a way to make yer!”
This was a new aspect, and the two girls were a little frightened. Natural instinct prompted them to scream for their mother.