He wanted to bustle about, to run away from it.
"Gi'e my back a bit of a wesh," he asked her.
His wife brought a well-soaped flannel and clapped it on his shoulders.
He gave a jump.
"Eh, tha mucky little 'ussy!" he cried.

"Cowd as death!" "You ought to have been a salamander," she laughed, washing his back.

It was very rarely she would do anything so personal for him.

The children did those things.
"The next world won't be half hot enough for you," she added.
"No," he said; "tha'lt see as it's draughty for me." But she had finished.

She wiped him in a desultory fashion, and went upstairs, returning immediately with his shifting-trousers.