“Perfectly. What do you propose?”
“I propose that you do the cooking and I wash the dishes. We will forage for food alternate days.”
“Very well. I agree to that.”
Richard Yates sat suddenly upright, looking at his friend with reproach in his eyes. “See here, Renmark; are you resolved to force on an international complication the very first day? That’s no fair show to give a man.”
“What isn’t?”
“Why, agreeing with him. There are depths of meanness in your character, Renny, that I never suspected. You know that people who camp out always object to the part assigned them by their fellow-campers. I counted on that. I’ll do anything but wash dishes.”
“Then why didn’t you say so?”
“Because any sane man would have said ‘no’ when I suggested cooking, merely because I suggested it. There is no diplomacy about you, Renmark. A man doesn’t know where to find you when you act like that. When you refused to do the cooking, I would have said: ‘Very well, then, I’ll do it,’ and everything would have been lovely; but now——”
Yates lay down again in disgust. There are moments in life when language fails a man.
“Then it’s settled that you do the cooking and I wash the dishes?” said the professor.