Thereafter the conversation was adjusted to the accompaniment of the exceedingly distressing sounds proceeding intermittently from Ambrose.
"Dear, dear—a crumb gone the wrong way?" said the unobservant Iris. "You'll be better in a minute, dear."
"I choked——" began Ambrose wheezingly, obedient to the unwritten law which decrees that the victim of a choking fit should add to his own discomfort and that of other people by entering into a gasping analysis of the phenomenon.
"Look at the ceiling, Ambrose," advised Mark.
Everyone in the room immediately set this desirable example by a sort of mysterious instinct, while the unfortunate Ambrose kept his head well down over his plate and continued to emit hysterical crows.
"Look at me, Peekaboo!" shouted Ruthie. "I'm looking at the ceiling!"
She hung backwards over her chair, glaring upwards with starting eyeballs.
"Don't do that, Ruthie," said Mark, Iris and Lady Rossiter simultaneously.
"Try and get your breath, laddie," advised Mr. Garrett kindly, if with some superfluity.
"He'll be better in a moment. Go on talking," was Lady Rossiter's tactful suggestion, which had the immediate effect of paralysing the assembly into a silence upon which the paroxysms of Ambrose struck with greatly enhanced violence.