‘Shut up, Flo,’ cried Jim indignantly, ‘I’m close upon eleven stone, and that’s the least a man should be of my size.’
‘Well,’ said Mab (‘I’ll pull you round, Florry, if you don’t mind)—that is what I say; girls may do for themselves as much as they please, but to drag about a great heavy man, whether it is pulling in a boat or driving in a dog-cart, or whatever it is, is what I don’t like. It is not what ought to be.’
‘You are so old-fashioned, Mab,’ said Florence anxiously from behind. ‘You and Aunt Emily, you have the old antiquated ways of thinking about women, that men should take care of them, and work for them, and all that, when perhaps it is the women that are most able to work, and take care of others too.’
‘I have no antiquated ways,’ said Mab. ‘I have no ways at all. I don’t think about women any more than about—other people. Mother and I have not got many men to take care of us, have we? But I say, it isn’t our place to pull a heavy man. He should do that for us. I prefer to pull myself. Do, do, Florry, keep time! And I don’t want your help, Jim. I am not talking of to-day; I am talking of things in general. It isn’t nice; it doesn’t look well; it’s not the right thing. I don’t want to have any man working for me; I’d much rather do it for myself. But he is the biggest and the strongest, and we oughtn’t to be doing things for him. That’s my opinion, without any reference to to-day.’
‘You are not very civil,’ said Jim. ‘Why didn’t you leave me at my Greek, Miss Mab? I might have done a lot, and been free after dinner. Now, instead of father’s jawing, which I’m used to, I have yours, which I’m not used to, and a slave in the evening as well. Hold hard a moment, till I shake off my coat and my boots, and I’ll swim ashore.’
‘Oh, Jim! it will be your death,’ said the frightened Florence, starting from her seat, and once more putting the boat dreadfully out of trim.
‘Be quiet, sit down!’ cried Mab, ‘or we shall have an accident. Do you hear? Jim is not going to do anything so silly. I was not speaking of him; I was only making a general remark. You can sit there and welcome so long as you steer against me, Jim: for I am pulling the boat round, can’t you see, and Florry is not the least good.’
‘Girls never are,’ said Jim; ‘the least little thing puts them out.’
‘You see, Florry:’ said Mab, ‘it was on his account you were exciting yourself and behaving like one of the cockneys on Bank Holiday, and he doesn’t mind. Let him alone. How far can we go to get back in daylight, Jim?’
Florence once more put in her word. ‘We can go as far as the island,’ she said.