“Are the plates very hot?” said Mick;
“Very sir.”
“Hot plates half the battle,” said Mick.
“Now, Caroline; here, Miss Harriet; don’t take away your plate, wait for the mash; they mash their taters here very elegant.”
It was a very happy and very merry party. Mick delighted to help his guests, and to drink their healths.
“Well,” said he when the waiter had cleared away their plates, and left them to their less substantial luxuries. “Well,” said Mick, sipping a renewed glass of gin twist and leaning back in his chair, “say what they please, there’s nothing like life.”
“At the Traffords’,” said Caroline, “the greatest fun we ever had was a singing class.”
“I pity them poor devils in the country,” said Mick; “we got some of them at Collinson’s—come from Suffolk they say; what they call hagricultural labourers, a very queer lot, indeed.”
“Ah! them’s the himmigrants,” said Caroline; “they’re sold out of slavery, and sent down by Pickford’s van into the labour market to bring down our wages.”
“We’ll teach them a trick or two before they do that,” urged Mick. “Where are you, Miss Harriet?”