'Of course I should,' he replied heartily. 'He's very kind and very strict. And if I mean to work harder than ever before, as I do now, since you put that jolly idea into my head, it's a good thing he is strict.'
When we got to the hut and unlocked the door, we found a good deal to do. For on Saturdays we generally—we meant to do it regularly, but I am afraid we sometimes forgot—had a sort of cleaning and tidying up. Photographing is very nice and interesting of course, and so is cooking, but they are rather messy! And when you've been doing one or the other nearly all day, it's rather disgusting to have to begin washing up greasy dishes, and chemicalised rags and glasses, and pots and pans, and all the rest of it. I don't mean that we ever cleaned up the photographing things with the kitchen things; we weren't so silly, as, of course, we should not only have spoilt our instruments, but run a good risk of poisoning ourselves too. But the whole lot needed cleaning, and I don't know which were the tiresomest.
And the last day we had spent at the hut, we had only half-tidied up, we had got so tired. So there were all the things about, as if they'd been having a dance in the night, like Hans Andersen's toys, and had forgotten to put themselves to bed after it.
Dods and I looked at each other rather grimly.
'It's got to be done,' I said. 'It's a shame to see the place so bright and sunny outside and so dreadfully messy indoors.'
'Yes,' said Dods, 'it is. So fire away, Ida. After all——' but he didn't finish his sentence and didn't need to. I knew what he meant—that quite possibly it was the very last time we'd need to have a good cleaning up in the dear old hut.