But Dolly, collapsed in a chair, broke out a-crying. "Oh, Goosie, Goosie, what are we going to do now?" she wailed; "what are we to do? O—O——"
"Well," said Charles-Norton, the spirit of contradiction which for several days had been within him rising to his lips; "well, I don't see what there is to make so much fuss about. A few feathers are not going to hurt a man, are they? 'Tisn't as if I were insane, or had hydrophobia!"
"But, Goosie, Goosie, no one has feathers on his shoulders! No one ever had feathers on his shoulders! No other man in the world ever did that; none in the world ever had feathers on his shoulders that way! Oh, Goosie, Goosie, what shall we do!!!"
"Let them alone," said Charles-Norton, now quite vexed. "They're mine; they don't hurt you, do they? Let 'em alone!" He raised his arms and began to slip his shirt up again.
The tears ceased to drip from Dolly's eyes. "You can't do that," she said, a maternal firmness coming into her voice. "Why, Goosie, what would they think of you down at the office?"
"At the office? Why, they won't know it!"
"But you'll know it, Goosie. All the time, you'll know it. Goosie, you don't want to be different, do you? You want to be like other men, don't you? You don't want to be different?"
This argument had some effect on Charles-Norton. He stood very still, scratching his head pensively. "Well," he said finally, "maybe you're right. Maybe we had better keep them cut short."
"Oh, Goosie!" cried Dolly, joyously, and bounded from the room. She came running back with the scissors. "Come, quick!" she panted. "I'll cut them, short. 'Twon't be much trouble after all, will it? I'll cut them every day. It will be just like shaving—no more trouble than that!"