"Not a doubt of that, ma'am.… But really you ladies have no right here: it's clean against the rules, and the hubbub you provoke is a scandal."
"Do you mean to insinuate, sir—"
"With your leave, ma'am, I mean to insinuate myself between your person and the table from which at this moment you debar me. Ah!" exclaimed Brother Copas as the cook whipped off the first of the great dish-covers, letting loose a cloud of savoury steam. He sniffed at it.
"What's this? Boiled pork, and in June! We'll have a look at the others, please… Roast leg of mutton, boiled neck and scrag of mutton—aha! You shall give me a cut of the roast, please; and start at the knuckle end. Yes, Biscoe—at the knuckle end."
Hate distorted Brother Biscoe's patriarchal face. He came second on the rota, and roast knuckle of mutton was the tit-bit dearest of all to his heart, as Brother Copas knew. Brother Biscoe also had a passion for the two first cutlets of a mutton-neck; but he thought nothing of this in his rage.
"Please God it'll choke ye!" he snarled.
"Dear Brother," said Copas amiably, "on Monday last you helped me to the back of a duck."
"Hurry up there!" shouted Brother Woolcombe, and swung round. "Are we all to get cold dinner when these two old fools have done wrangling?"
"Fool yourself, Woolcombe!" Brother Biscoe likewise swung about. "Here's Copas has brought two plates! Isn't it time to speak up, when a rogue's caught cheating?"
One or two cried out that he ought to lose his turn for it.