“Leave me alone, Gustave! Do you suppose I can’t manage my own son? He ain’t yours! ’E’d make ’imself ill if I didn’t look after him. Take ’is plate away, at once!”
The man-servant William lifted the plate of peeled shrimps and bread and butter from the table, whilst Bobby with a very red face rose from his seat and rushed down the steps to the beach.
“He! he! he!” cackled the Baroness, “that’ll teach ’im not to fiddle with ’is food another time! Bobby don’t care for an empty belly!”
“What a shame!” murmured Margaret, who was nothing if she was not a mother, “now the poor boy will go without his breakfast.”
Presently, William was to be seen sneaking past the Hotel with a parcel in his hands. The Baroness pounced upon him like a cat upon a mouse.
“William!” she cried from the balcony, “what ’ave you got in your ’and?”
“Summat of my own, my lady!”
“Bring it ’ere!”
The man mounted the steps and stood before his mistress. He held a parcel in his hands, wrapped up in a table napkin.
“Open that parcel!” said the Baroness.