Page:Jean Webster--Much ado about Peter.djvu/296

288 Beggin' yer pardon, sir, I've knowed Miss Ethel longer than you have. I was servin' at Willowbrook all the time that ye was in boardin' school an' college. Her hair was hangin' down her back an' she was drivin' a pony cart when I first come. I watched her grow and I know her ways—there was times, sir, when she was most uncommon troublesome. She's the kind of a woman as needs managin', and if ye 'll excuse me for sayin' so, it takes a man to do it. Ye 're too quiet an' gentleman-like, Mr. Harry. Though I guess she likes to have ye act like a gentleman, when ye can't do both she'd rather have ye act like a man. If I was her husband"

"You forget yourself, Peter!"

"Yes, sir. Beg yer pardon, sir, but as I was sayin', if I was her husband, I'd let her see who was master pretty quick, an' she'd like me the better. And if she ever told me she would be glad for me to go away an' never come back, I'd look at her black like with me