“Oh! Does your mother wash?”
“My mother’s dead, too.”
Philip thought this answer would cause the boy a certain awkwardness, but Venning was not to be turned from his facetiousness for so little.
“Well, did she wash?” he went on.
“Yes,” said Philip indignantly.
“She was a washerwoman then?”
“No, she wasn’t.”
“Then she didn’t wash.”
The little boy crowed with delight at the success of his dialectic. Then he caught sight of Philip’s feet.
“What’s the matter with your foot?”