“Then tell me what you are laughing at.”
“He’s—he’s—he’s—oh, dear!—oh, dear! I never saw such a sight in my life! I hadn’t been gone more than five minutes when—ho! ho! ho! ho!”
“Look here,” cried cook, who was enjoying her fellow-servant’s mirth, and who began thumping again at poor Bella’s back, “do you want me to thump it out of you?”
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Do a-done, cook!” sobbed out Bella, hysterically and incoherently. “Not more than five minutes, and his mouth so full he couldn’t speak, and his eyes staring at me out of his head, and he had gobbled up nearly all the sausage cakes and all the hot bread, and I don’t know how many cups of tea he had had, but the one before him was quite full. But oh, Martha, do a-done, and let me laugh it out, or I shall die!”
Plump Martha’s face was wreathed with smiles, and she chuckled a little audibly at her fellow-servant’s mirth, while her pleasant little vanity was agreeably tickled at the appreciation of her culinary efforts all the while.
“You are such a stupid, Bella,” she said, good-humouredly. “When once you begin to laugh you never know how to leave off. I don’t see anything to laugh at. Poor dear boy, he’d had no dinner, and only a morsel of cold pork-pie since breakfast, and he does like my cakes.”