"No it ain't," returns Billy, grumpily, and with rather more than his usual vulgarity.
"I ask merely for information," says Roly. "It certainly looks odd."
"It's beastly," says Billy. "If the governor goes in for any more of this kind of thing I'll cut and run; that's what I'll do."
"Why didn't you have some dumpling?" Roland goes on, smoothly. "The whipped cream with it was capital."
"Dumpling?" says Billy, regarding me fixedly; "dumpling! Phyllis, was there dumpling?"
"There was," I reply.
"And whipped cream!"
"Yes," I answer, faintly.
"Oh, Phyllis!" says Billy, in the liveliest tone of reproach. The flicker of an amused smile shoots across Roland's face.
"Phyllis, why did you not bring him some?" he asks, in a tone that reflects Billy's.