"Where did you intend to lunch?" her uncle answered when, the laborious journey accomplished, they were seated at the table.
"Where?" Hazel repeated. "Oh, in the waiting room. Teddie bought me twelve halfpenny buns, thinking that I was going to take an earlier train, and that I should not be very late for lunch. I should be glad if I might leave them here," she went on, "It is such a bagful and, however hungry I am, I can never eat more than two halfpenny buns. Can you?"
"I don't know," returned her uncle with a grim smile. "I have forgotten. Eh, Thomas?"
Thomas was so startled at this most unusually amicable address, that he nearly dropped the dish that he was in the act of handing.
"Teddie knows this—this peculiarity of mine," Hazel continued; "but he is always so generous, and always likes to do things on a large scale. He said he knew I should not eat them, but nevertheless he liked to think I had them."
"I suppose you engaged an outside porter?" her uncle inquired.
The amazed Thomas had not seen him in so jocular a vein for years.
Hazel laughed. "You would like Teddie. Everyone does, without being able to help themselves."
"Humph," her uncle ejaculated.
"I could give you another instance of his large-heartedness," the girl went on. "It is a good story, and not long." She proceeded to relate the incident of the quarrel with Carrots, its cause, the black eye, the beefsteak, and of her brother's subsequent dismissal. Her uncle endeavoured to hide an interest that was manifest.