"Mother!" urged Gaspare, still wrathful, "go and look after her!"
"Oh, these servants!" said the mother-in-law, turning to Regina, "one shouldn't mention them, I know, but they're the ruin of families. I'll tell you afterwards——"
"It's one of the gravest of social problems," said Massimo, sarcastically, looking straight before him.
"But one can't live without servants," cried Gaspare.
"Yet the servants are the death of you?"
"Oh, I'll be the death of them if they don't do their business," said Gaspare, and they all laughed.
Notwithstanding the old lady's irruptions into the kitchen the courses were a long time coming. Talk grew animated. Massimo chattered with the cousin; Signora Anna expatiated to Signora Clara on the delinquencies of the maid.
"How are you getting on with your Gigione?" Antonio asked Gaspare; and his brother replied, abusing his chief as he had abused Marina.
"Did you get my last letter?" Arduina demanded of Regina, under cover of the general noise.
"Which?"