“You’ll have to stand on the table to reach me,” he said, looking down with amused indulgence.
“As you are so impertinent you can go dusty,” and I tossed the brush away.
The evening was balmy, so I invited him into the garden. He threw his handkerchief over my chest, saying I might catch cold, but I scouted the idea.
We wandered into an arbour covered with wistaria, banksia, and Marechal Niel roses, and I made him a buttonhole.
A traveller pulled rein in the roadway, and, dismounting, threw his bridle over a paling of the garden fence while he went inside to try and buy a loaf of bread.
I jumped up, frightening the horse so that it broke away, pulling off the paling in the bridle-rein. I ran to bring a hammer to repair the damage. Mr Beecham caught the horse while I attempted to drive the nail into the fence. It was a futile attempt. I bruised my fingers. He took the hammer from me, and fixing the paling in its place with a couple of well-aimed blows, said laughingly:
“You drive a nail! You couldn’t expect to do anything. You’re only a girl. Girls are the helplessest, uselessest, troublesomest little creatures in the world. All they’re good for is to torment and pester a fellow.”
I had to laugh.
At this juncture we heard uncle Jay-Jay’s voice, so Mr Beecham went towards the back, whence it proceeded, after he left me at the front door.
“Oh, auntie, we got on splendidly! He’s not a bit of trouble. We’re as chummy as though we had been reared together,” I exclaimed.