“Why do you suppose I’ve been talking such a lot? Why do you imagine I snapped your poor, innocent head off just now? I’m terrified inside, terrified!” “You don’t look it, by Jove!” “No, I’m trying to be a little warrior. That’s what Uncle Chris always used to call me. It started the day when he took me to have a tooth out, when I was ten. ‘Be a little warrior, Jill!’ he kept saying—‘Be a little warrior!’ And I was.” She looked at the clock. “But I shan’t be if they don’t get here soon. The suspense is awful.” She strummed the keys. “Suppose she doesn’t like me, Freddie! You see how you’ve scared me.” “I didn’t say she wouldn’t. I only said you’d got to watch out a bit.” “Something tells me she won’t. My nerve is oozing out of me.” Jill shook her head impatiently. “It’s all so vulgar! I thought this sort of thing only happened in the comic papers and in music-hall songs. Why, it’s just like that song somebody used to sing.” She laughed. “Do you remember? I don’t know how the verse went, but … John took me round to see his mother, his mother, his mother! And when he’d introduced us to each other, She sized up everything that I had on. She put me through a cross-examination: I fairly boiled with aggravation: Then she shook her head, Looked at me and said: ‘Poor John! Poor John!’ “Chorus, Freddie! Let’s cheer ourselves up! We need it!” ‘John took me round to see his mother … ! “His mo-o-o-other!” croaked Freddie. Curiously enough, this ballad was one of Freddie’s favorites. He had rendered it with a good deal of success on three separate occasions at village entertainments down in Worcestershire, and he rather flattered himself that he could get about as much out of it as the next man. He proceeded to abet Jill heartily with gruff sounds which he was under the impression constituted what is known in musical circles as “singing seconds.” “His mo-o-o-other!” he growled with frightful scorn. “And when she’d introduced us to each other …” “O-o-o-other!” “She sized up everything that I had on!”
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