Absolutely accurately, absolutely indelibly, the White Linen Nurse visualized each separate detail in her abnormally retentive mind.
“But you can’t possibly remember it,” groaned the Senior Surgeon. “You can’t possibly. And probably the damned car’s bust and won’t start, anyway, and—” Abruptly the speech ended in a guttural snarl of despair.
“Don’t be a—blight!” screamed the White Linen Nurse. “I’ve never forgotten anything yet, sir!”
Very tensely she straightened up suddenly in her seat. Her expression was no longer even remotely pleasant. Along her sensitive, fluctuant nostrils the casual crinkle of distaste and suspicion had deepened suddenly into sheer dilating terror.
“Left foot—press down—hard—left pedal,” she began to singsong to herself.
“No, right foot—right foot!” corrected the Little Girl, blunderingly from somewhere close in the grass.
“Inside lever—pull—’way—back!” persisted the White Linen Nurse, resolutely, as she switched on the current.
“No, outside lever! Outside! Outside!” contradicted the Little Girl.
“Shut your damned mouth!” screeched the White Linen Nurse, her hand on the throttle as she tried the self-starter.
Bruised as he was, wretched, desperately endangered there under the car, the Senior Surgeon could almost have grinned at the girl’s terse, unconscious mimicry of his own most venomous tones.