“I’ll tell your dada, and see what he’ll say, if you call the meat tallow; and you’re just as bad, Joe; worse if anything—gracious me, here’s waste! well, I’ll lock it up for you, and you shall both of you eat it to-morrow, before you have a bit of anything else.”
Then followed a desperate fit of coughing.
“My poor Minny!” said the mother, “you’re just as bad as ever. Why would you go out on the wet grass?—Is there none of the black currant jam left?”
“No, mother,” coughed Minny, “not a bit.”
“Greg ate it all,” peached Sarah, an elder sister; “I told him not, but he would.”
“Greg, I’ll have you flogged, and you never shall come from school again. What’s that you’re saying, Mary?”
“There’s a jintleman in the drawing-room as is axing afther masther.”
“Gentleman—what gentleman?” asked the lady.
“Sorrow a know I know, ma’am!” said Mary, who was a new importation—“only, he’s a dark, sightly jintleman, as come on a horse.”
“And did you send for the master?”