“Look here, Eustace; can Caroline Baddlesmere cook?”
“God knows!” he said. “Why should she? The Creator did not make woman in the image of a Dutch oven!”
Emma Hartroff sat down, and uttered a sigh:
“Oh, you’re beyond me, Eustace. I don’t like you when you’re serious.” She turned to the others: “Our humorist is as solemn as a pawnbroker,” she said.
There were loud cries of “Order! order!”
Rippley stood up:
“Someone dared to speak of pawnbrokers!” he said.
Emma Hartroff seized the tails of his coat:
“For heaven’s sake, let us have no fines to-night, Rippley—I’m stone-broke——”
She started—gave a shrill scream—and added: