“Ah, but these are fresh ones,” I said. “Did you explain it to her? Perhaps she had never tried them before; it makes all the difference.”
Ruth suggested that I had better speak to her myself, so I gathered up my skirts and “webbed it,” as an elegant friend of mine puts it, over the wet floor to Mrs. Muff and touched her on the shoulder.
“Good morning, Mrs. Muff,” I shouted. The song ceased. An amiable little cherry face with a sharp nose, vegetable eyes, and four teeth, by no means whole, whisked round upon me out of the steam.
“I can only abide with you for a minute, dear Mrs. Muff,” I bawled, “but I came to ask whether you had everything you wanted.”
“Oh, yes, thank you, m’m, indeed—unless it were that you could see your way to a new wash-tub; this one leaks something awful. If you thought of getting a man in to see to it he would tell you.”
“I know what he would tell me,” I replied, “I say—I know what he would tell me. I have heard it before.”
“And what was that, m’m?” Mrs. Muff inquired intelligently with one dripping hand behind her ear.
“I can’t explain,” I shouted, “it would take too long, but it made him whistle a great deal, and I don’t think the whistling did the tub any good, so we got a new one, and that is the one you are using—it is quite new—I can’t get another just yet.”
“Oh, quite so, m’m, quite so, I only thought I would mention it. I can manage splendidly, but this soap don’t seem to get up much of a lather. Where I was in my last place I did all the master’s shirts, and the table-cloths, and the sheets, and the pillow-cases. I made a splendid job of it; got a fine lather we did, and all with Cross and Blackwell’s soap, nothing else; I never put nothing to it, no soda nor chemicals; I don’t hold with them. Just the plain soap. Now I’ll just show you this soap if you can be troubled—beg pardon, it’s me left ear—if you’ll excuse me I’ll turn round—now then, what was it, m’m?”
“By and by,” I screamed, “but what about your breakfast?”