"Hush!" The Nurse squeezed her hand, meaning that she must have courage. "We have come too late, and the dinner is all shared up—or all of it that would do your father good."
"But"—Corona dragged her small hand loose—"there is plenty left; and when they know he is sick they will make it all right.… If you please, sir," she spoke up, planting her small body in front of Brother Biscoe as he would have pushed past with his plate, "my father is sick, and Nurse says he must not eat the meat that's left on the dish there. Won't you give me that on your plate?"
She stretched out a hand for it, and Brother Biscoe, spent with senile wrath at this last interruption of his escape, was snatching back the food, ready to curse her, when Brother Copas came battling through the press, holding both his plates high and hailing cheerfully.
"I forgot," he panted, and held up the plate in his left hand. "Bonaday can have the knuckle. I had first choice to-day."
"He ought not to eat roasted meat," said Nurse Branscome slowly. "I am sorry. You are good and will be disappointed. The smallest bit of boiled, now—were it only the scrag—"
"Why," bustled Brother Copas, "Brother Biscoe has the very thing, then—the two best cutlets at the bottom of the neck. And, what's more, he'll be only too glad to exchange 'em for the roast knuckle here, as I happen to know."
He thrust the tit-bit upon Brother Biscoe, who hesitated a moment between hate and greed, and snatched the cutlets from him before hate could weigh down the balance.
Brother Biscoe, clutching the transferred plate, fled ungraciously, without a word of thanks. Nurse Branscome stayed but a moment to thank Brother Copas for his cleverness, and hurried off with Corona to hot-up the plate of mutton for the invalid.
They left Brother Copas eyeing his dismal pork.
"And in June, too!" he murmured. "No: a man must protect himself. I'll have to eke out to-day on biscuits."