“May I telephone, please, m’m?” she inquires.
You sharpen your pencil meanwhile, and there is a faint rustle in the air as of lost ideas peeping round to see whether every one has gone.
“H’m, h’m (a little cough from the direction of the telephone). If you please’m, Jones says that the haddock isn’t very nice to-day; he has some nice turbot at two-and-sixpence.”
“Ask the silly idiot if he sends up turbot for his own nursery breakfast, will you,” is the only reply your indignation will afford. Goodness knows what all the haddock are about in these days; they always used to be “nice” at any time of year.
“Shall I tell him not to trouble about it, m’m?” she says, holding the receiver away from her ear.
“Oh, yes, don’t let him break up his health over it,” you say, and once more resume your work. Your quiet room is now, in your imagination, a seething, noisy mass of food, all of it quarrelling as to who shall climb on to the table at dinner.
“What shall I order for breakfast instead of the fish?” demands cook, lightly poised for flight beside the writing-table.
“Bacon,” you say, “bacon, bacon, bacon,” and you look up hoping to see a mess of squashed cook on the blotting-paper. But not at all. She is round the other side, tickling your left ear.
“The bacon’s finished to-day, m’m. Did you remember to order any more?”