"I simply never talk about myself, because I think people who tell you about their ailments are absolutely awful; but actually I'm not frightfully strong. I get the most terrible nervous headaches for one thing. I mean, I could scream with the pain often and often. I think it's from being terribly highly strung. Both my children are exactly like me too. Frightfully sensitive and easily upset. They kind of feel things inside, the same way that I do, and bottle it up."

Her mother, who happened to overhear this remark, said robustly: "Nonsense! You spoil them, my dear child; that's all the trouble."

Mrs. Pemble turned quite pink at this and at once joined issue with her parent, declaring that Agatha just didn't understand, and that everyone said she managed her children better than anyone else. As Mrs. Mansell appeared to be unconvinced by this universal testimonial, Betty at once appealed to Clive to support her, interrupting him in the middle of a discussion with Jim Kane on the probable outcome of the Surrey vs. Gloucester Match. By the time Mrs. Mansell's stricture had been repeated to him, and various incidents illustrative of Betty's skill in handling her progeny recalled to his mind, Joe Mansell, Mrs. Kane and Clement had all become involved in the discussion, Joe advancing as his contribution to it that he liked to see kids enjoying themselves; Clement, with a meaning glance at his wife, deploring his own lack of children; and Mrs. Kane stating that in her young days children never had any nerves at all.

This was an observation calculated to rouse the ire of the most good-tempered mother, and when it was promptly seconded by Mrs. Mansell, Betty Pemble, reinforcing her own arguments by the pronouncements of a host of sages somewhat vaguely referred to by her under the general title of People, set about the formidable task of convincing two stalwarts of the Victorian age that they did not understand children's little minds.