"You squeezed too much, Jim."
"That girl must have squeezed more; and you all do, that's my private opinion."
In consideration, therefore, of the infirmities to which a rigorous convention condemns my sex, Jim said he would do the thinning out for me.
My promising annuals, designed for grand duty in the cutting line, godetias and larkspurs and chrysanthemums and Shirley poppies, were all most flourishing, but coming much too thick. They ought to have been thinned out sooner, of course, but we had been too busy, so Jim devoted his early morning hours to them, before the five minutes' rush on his bicycle which took him to the station for Gatley, where he and some other fellows were being crammed to pass the examination for the Royal Navy.
Jim's days were always filled. He never neglected cricket, nor, in its good time, football and hockey; but he was going to see me through with my garden for the first year, he said, and his help and ideas were never-failing.
On the thinning-out mornings Jim got up early; very early it seemed to me when he bounced into my room and sent a flood of light full on my face, or placed a damp sponge there.
"Now I am going to thin, and I can't do it with any satisfaction if you are asleep. What you have to do is to think out any blooming thoughts for this blooming essay on courage. Why the blooming idiot gives us such rotten subjects I can't think. But you must jot down some headings and be ready with them when I come back."
"Jim, what a worn-out old subject. I shall go to sleep over it."
"This won't do," and Jim strode to the washing stand and plunged the sponge in water.