"I can't button my dress," was Margery's final plaint.
"You got to."
"But I tell you I can't," she insisted, her voice rising to a long-drawn wail. "It buttons behind."
With the utmost dignity the screen slowly turned itself around. That was a signal for the small boys in the water to break forth into jeers and taunts. They spoke in that treble squeal which little boys use when they seek to imitate girls' voices.
"Say, Henry, please lend me your towel to wipe my ears."
"Button my dress, Henry."
"Where's your shoe-horn, Henry?"
Apparently Henry's calm remained unshaken. In reality he made a rather poor job of the buttoning. As soon as the back of the dress promised to hold together, he stopped. Then, firmly clutching Margery's arm in one hand and holding his seine and tin can of minnows in the other, he faced his waspish little tormentors.