“My chycest gravy soup, ar lar prin temps” said cook bitterly, “and filly de sole mater de hôtel. One might just as well be cutting chaff for horses. I don’t see any use in toiling and moiling over the things as I do. Mr Landon’s just as bad as master, every bit. I don’t believe either of ’em’s got a bit o’ taste. Hot as everything was, too!”
“Spesherly the plates,” said Sam solemnly. “Burnt one of my fingers when the napkin slipped.”
“Then you should have took care. What’s a dinner unless the plates and dishes are hot?”
“What, indeed?” said Sam; “but they don’t take no notice of anything. My plate looked lovely, you could see your face out o’ shape in every spoon; and I don’t believe they even saw the eighteen-pen’orth o’ flowers on the table.”
“Savages! that’s what they are,” said cook. “But they did eat the things.”
“Yes, they pecked at ’em, but they was talking all the time.”
“About my cooking?”
“Not they! The doctor was talking about a surgical case he had been to see at the hospital. Something about a soldier as had been walking about for three years with a bit of broken spear stuck in him out in the Soudan.”
“Ugh!” grunted cook, with a shudder of disgust. “That was over the veal cutlets,” said Sam thoughtfully.
“And what did Mr Landon say? He ought to have known better than to talk about such ’orrid stuff over his meals.”