But I was cross. I hate being called a 'female' and my clothes 'gear.' Why do I always live with cavemen who will have their own way and trample on my deepest feelings? I determined, however, that I would try again and said, 'But the mattress has such lumps and——'
'I adore lumps; how can you be so selfish, Meg?'
'But I don't want to be turned out of my room like this.'
'Well, that's what I keep on saying,' said Ross. 'How inconsistent women are. What time is dinner? Can I have a bath?'
'Just turned it on, sir,' said Brown, coming into the room and beginning to unpack!
So I left them. When Ross went downstairs I heard him call back, 'Sam, there are several things in my room that I don't want. I've left them in the middle of the floor, get rid of them.' And I wondered how Sam would carry out my brother's impossible orders, as landladies 'don't like things moved.' I peeped in as I went down. Brown was gazing at a weird assortment: all the antimacassars, some of the texts, the case of birds, and the ship in the glass bottle, the hair tidy like a balloon (which I rescued for the Gidger) and last but not least the 'Believer's Vision,' which Ross had taken off the wall and stood upside down upon the pile, in a frantic effort to save his faith from shipwreck.
I went down to dinner, and Brown waited. Liver and bacon! with that variety of mashed potato which my refined relative has from his earliest youth called 'worms.' I refused the liver and took some bacon; so did Ross, remarking that he 'Never could eat "works."'
Brown handed Ross the next course, which was rice pudding.
'Why do you bother to offer me this filth?' said Ross indignantly to Brown, 'you know I never touch it. What's the other stuff, jelly? I'll have some of that.'
'Packet,' said Brown, 'by the look of it, sir; shouldn't recommend it.'