"If you were havin' a tail in this London, there wouldn't be room to run round after it!" Scorn vibrated in this voice.
A pause.
Thud—thud—patter— Then, with a startling suddenness, a wild Irish whoop.
Miss Kezia jumped badly, and the angry, shamed colour flooded her cheeks. She rose—a quick succession of whoops sounded nearer and nearer—she went out into the hall. Denis was coming downstairs, two at a time, and performing an Irish jig at the same moment. The others were behind him.
"May I request that you cease making those horrible noises? I do not want the police here, thinking murder is being committed."
Unfortunately this struck their perverse minds as being intensely funny.
Miss Kezia went back to the dining room, and they followed her to cold coffee and congealed porridge. But coffee as cold as the ice round the North pole, and porridge as congealed as lead, were powerless, as Miss Kezia's disapproval was powerless, to quench the hilarity in the atmosphere that morning.
"May I inquire why you have chosen to be three-quarters of an hour late this morning?"
Heads were lifted from bowls of congealed porridge; laughter rippled round the table.
"'Twasn't we chose—it was the letters," Nell said, and her voice was almost a song, so gay was the lilt of it.