. . . . . .
The Milford and Cork boat starts at eight, and at half-past eight a doomed crowd was sitting round its still stationary tea-table. My second cousin was feverishly eating dry toast and drinking a precautionary brandy and soda, but the others were revelling
“IN THE SECLUSION OF THE BACK BEDROOM.”
on beefsteak and fried fish. The company was mixed. Opposite to us sat an American and his bride, both young, and both uncertain of the rules that govern the consumption of fish; the bride feeling that a couple of small forks, held as though they were pens, would meet the situation, while her big, red-headed husband evidently believed that by holding the fork in the right hand and the knife in the left the impropriety of using the latter would be condoned. Beside us were two elderly ladies, returning, like us, to their native land.
“Yes, me dear,” we heard one saying to the other; “I had nothing only my two big boxes and seven little small parcels, and poor little Charlie’s rabbit, and that porther wanted to get thruppence out o’ me!”
“D’ye tell me so?” remarked the friend.