Mother, gently, "I think it looks beautifully cooked, just nicely browned."
"Of course you do. You can eat anything. Some people have the digestion of an ostrich."
Amelia, breaking in, "Please don't carve it that way, sir. We eats the bottom side first—that was Tompkinses' way—and next day when it's turned over it looks as though it had never been touched, quite respectable like."
Peter: "Am I carving this cinder or are you?"
Amelia (calmly, but as I knew ominously): "Neither of us, sir, at this partickler minute. But p'r'aps you will be startin' before it's cold."
Sounds of splashings of gravy, and hurried exit of Amelia (I guessed to fetch a cloth).
"It's the best table-cloth, sir, double damux, and has to last a fortnight."
"A what?"
"A week for dinner, and followin' week for breakfast."
"A piggish habit!"