"I never see such a bird in my life, certainly."
"From Norfolk, I suppose," said Snengkeld, with a great appearance of interest.
"Oh, you may swear to that. It weighed twenty-four pounds, for I put it into the scales myself, and old Gibbetts let me have it for a guinea. The price marked on it was five-and-twenty, for I saw it. He's had it hanging for a fortnight, and I've been to see it wiped down with vinegar regular every morning. And now, my boys, it's done to a turn. I've been in the kitchen most of the time myself; and either I or Mrs. M. has never left it for a single moment."
"How did you manage about divine service?" said Kantwise; and then, when he had spoken, closed his eyes and sucked his lips.
Mr. Moulder looked at him for a minute, and then said, "Gammon."
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Snengkeld. And then Mrs. Moulder appeared, bringing the turkey with her; for she would trust it to no hands less careful than her own.
"By George, it is a bird," said Snengkeld, standing over it and eyeing it minutely.
"Uncommon nice it looks," said Kantwise.
"All the same, I wouldn't eat none, if I were you," said Moulder, "seeing what sinners have been a basting it." And then they all sat down to dinner, Moulder having first resumed his coat.
For the next three or four minutes Moulder did not speak a word. The turkey was on his mind, with the stuffing, the gravy, the liver, the breast, the wings, and the legs. He stood up to carve it, and while he was at the work he looked at it as though his two eyes were hardly sufficient. He did not help first one person and then another, so ending by himself; but he cut up artistically as much as might probably be consumed, and located the fragments in small heaps or shares in the hot gravy; and then, having made a partition of the spoils, he served it out with unerring impartiality. To have robbed any one of his or her fair slice of the breast would, in his mind, have been gross dishonesty. In his heart he did not love Kantwise, but he dealt by him with the utmost justice in the great affair of the turkey's breast. When he had done all this, and his own plate was laden, he gave a long sigh. "I shall never cut up such another bird as that, the longest day that I have to live," he said; and then he took out his large red silk handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from his brow.