"An' who gave ye leave, if I may mak so bold as to axe to come lording it i' my kitchen?"
"No one; but I'm here all the same. You don't know the food a strong man needs, and I've come to teach you."
Betty Binns was in two minds whether she should throw her iron at Griff's head; but she restrained herself, and tried her hand at grim satire instead.
"Th' maister is a man o' God, Mr. Lummax, which tha'll niver be nohow tha tries. It's nobbut likely he should want his vittals different fro' other fowks's."
"The more he's a man of God, the more strength he needs to fight the devil.—Now come, Mrs. Binns, we've had many a set-to in times gone by, and I'll acknowledge you generally have the best of it: won't you do my way this once?"
He was talking sense now, Betty could not but admit. Of course she always had the best of it—it took something more than a mere man to vanquish Betty Binns—and she always had said "there war summat she liked i' th' lad;" and perhaps he was not as far wrong on this occasion as bothersome men-folk generally were.
"Well, happen ye've hit on a bit o' common sense once i' a while. Th' maister, he do look main poorly when th' Sperrit keeps strong meät out on him. Ay, well, well, we'll be seeing."
Lomax chuckled at the overthrow of Betty Binns; he had expected more fight from her. Truth to tell, however, the housekeeper had been sorely bothered of late to see Gabriel growing leaner and leaner; he was a solid, square-built man, as his father had been before him, when Nature had her own way, but his increasing mania for slops was playing havoc with him. So that Betty was really a good deal relieved to find an ally in young Lomax.
"Didn't I say you were a woman of sound sense?" said Griff, with barefaced disregard of his first statement. "You're jolly fond of me, too, Betty, under all that bluster of yours."