Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/97

98 "Whatever you been after with that cupboard door?" he asked. "Trying to get the paint off," said Jane shortly.

"Don't you like the colour, miss? I thought it looked so nice and refined myself."

"We don't want to be refined," said Lucilla; "we want to see the colour of the wood."

"What you tried?"

"Soda—and it's not taken off half the paint, but all the skin's off our hands!"

The girls displayed four scarlet paws.

"Dear, dear!" said Simmons, deeply concerned. "Whyever didn't you ask me? My boss, him that was here the other day, he knows all about chemistry and dyes and engines and dynamite and all sorts. I lay I can get him to give me something to eat off that green paint as if it was caterpillars on a cabbage-plot. You put some honey and lily leaves on them poor hands of yours, and I'll come along Saturday and see what I can do to the paint. I've got a day off then."

"You are good, Mr. Simmons," said the two girls in absolute unison.

"Granted," said Mr. Simmons absently. "Though I can't see what you wanted to touch it for, myself. But there's no accounting to be placed on tastes, is there? Good afternoon, I'm sure."

When the girls reached the shop on Saturday morning they found the shutters down, the glass doors open, and two figures in blue boiler-suits busy with a pail and a step-ladder. The door of the cupboard was a smooth grey-brown. Not a streak of paint remained on it.

"How splendid!" said Jane to Simmons, whose face beamed above the first suit of blue overalls. "Why, it's you again!" she said, not very graciously, to the wearer of the second suit.

"Yes," answered Mr. Rochester. "I thought I might as well lend a hand. Try to disguise your annoyance, won't you? I know I'm only an amateur, but I mean well."