"Of course you can't poach vegetables," she went on, "but you can poach eggs, and, as a matter of fact, I believe our fried eggs are poached eggs. Could such a statement ever occur out of Ireland and carry sense with it? It's awful, isn't it?"
"I think it's a jolly lark," said Mr. Dashwood. "Gloats! To think of old Bingham gobbling his own turkeys!"
"Pheasants, you mean. Don't talk of turkeys, for we've had three since Christmas, and I don't know what's been going on in the kitchen in the way of food, but I know they had jugged hare for supper last night."
"When did you find out about it?"
"Yesterday morning I began to guess. You see, I had been wondering for a long time how Mrs. Driscoll had been managing to produce such good food for two pounds ten a week. She pays for the groceries and everything out of it. Well, yesterday morning she brought me six pounds that she had 'saved' out of the housekeeping money; she said it might be useful to 'the master.'
"I must say it was a perfect godsend, but I thought it more than peculiar, and I tried to cross-question her. But it was useless. She swore she had been saving the money for months—before we left Drumgool even—so I could say no more.
"However, things came to a climax last night. I was lying in bed; it was long after eleven, and the moon was very bright, and I heard a noise in the stable-yard. My window looks on to the stable-yard. I got up and peeped through the blind, and I saw Moriarty and Andy with a sheep between them. They were trying to put it into one of the loose boxes, and it didn't seem to want to go. Now, when you are trying to drive a sheep like that against its will, it bleats, doesn't it?"
"I should think so."
"Well; this sheep didn't bleat—it was muzzled!"
They had reached the post-office by this, and Miss Grimshaw stopped to put in her letters; then she remembered that she required stamps and a packet of hooks and eyes, so she left Mr. Dashwood to his meditations in the street and entered the little shop.