'Sit still, ladies,' said Mr. Westwyn, 'and drink your tea in peace.' Then, turning to Lynmere, 'I wonder,' he cried, 'you a'n't ashamed of yourself! If you were a son of mine, I'll tell you what; I'd lock you up! I'd serve you as I did when I carried you over to Leipsic, eight years ago. I always hated pert boys. I can't fancy 'em.'
Lynmere, affecting not to hear him, though inwardly firing, called violently after a waiter; and, in mere futile vengeance, not only gave an order for Champagne, but demanded some Stilton cheese.
'Cheese!' exclaimed Miss Margland, 'if you order any cheese, I can't so much as stay in the room. Think what a nauseous smell it will make!'
The man answered, they had no Stilton cheese in the house, but the very best of every other sort.
Lynmere, who had only given this command to shew his defiance of control, seized, with equal avidity, the opportunity to abuse the waiter; affirming he belonged to the worst served hotel in Christendom.
The man walked off in dudgeon, and Mr. Westwyn, losing his anger in his astonishment at this effrontery, said, 'And pray, Mr. Lynmere, what do you pretend to know of Stilton cheese? do they make it at Leipsic? did you ever so much as taste it in your life?'
'O, yes! excellent! excellentissimo! I can eat no other.'
'Eat no other! it's well my Hal don't say the same! I'd churn him to a cheese himself if he did! And pray, Mr. Lynmere, be so good as to let me know how you got it there?'
'Ways and means, sir; ways and means!'
'Why you did not send across the sea for it?'