Ann started to her feet: Aunt Harriet screamed: May recoiled against the wall: Bob and Mr. Alcock regarded their compeer open-mouthed: Uncle Tom, who had been in the act of drinking, was coughing and cursing and wringing tea from his moustache.
What was more to the point, Ada stopped hiccuping.
When Mr. Barnham pointed this out, the fact was coldly received.
“Enough to make anybody stop anything,” snarled Aunt Harriet. “Don’t you know ’ow to be’ave?”
“In course I do,” said Mr. Barnham. “You never see me do that before.”
“No, an’ don’t you never let me see you do it again,” was the tart reply. “Nasty, vulgar ’abits.”
“But I done it to stop ’er ’iccups,” protested the ill-used youth.
“I don’t want to know why you done it,” observed his hostess. “You done it—an’ that’s enough. You oughtter be ashamed of yourself. . . . May, give Lady Ann a cut of beef.”
With goggling eyes, Mr. Barnham proceeded in some dudgeon to the consumption of a hunk of dry bread, presumably with some vague idea that this mortification of the flesh would stimulate a recognition of his injury.
Conversation revived.