"Will yez be off to school!" Mrs. O'Brien again shouted.
No one heeded her in the least. George by this time was seated at the table and Rosie was hanging over his shoulder. Terence and small Jack stood facing him at the other side of the table and Miss Ellen O'Brien, with the baby in her arms, lingered near the door.
"Your cabbage'll be stone cold," Mrs. O'Brien scolded, "and they'll all be late for school if they don't be off wid 'em!"
"Was he drunk, Jarge?" Rosie asked.
"No, but he'd been taking too much." George spoke through a mouthful of corned beef and cabbage.
"Aw, go on," Terry pleaded, "tell us all about it."
"They ain't much to tell," George declared, with a complacency that belied his words. "He was nuthin' but a big stiff about nine feet high and built double across the shoulders." George sighed and cocked his eye as though bored at the necessity of recounting his adventure. Then, just to humour them, as it were, he continued: "I see trouble as soon as he got on. They was plenty of empty seats on one side, but the first thing I knew he was hanging on a strap on the crowded side insultin' a poor little lady. He wasn't sayin' nuthin' but he was just hangin' over her face, lookin' at her and grinnin' until she was ready to cry out for shame."
"The brute!" snapped Mrs. O'Brien as she slopped down a big cup of coffee.
"Did you throw him off?" Terence asked.
George took an exasperating time to swallow, then complained: "You mustn't hurry me so. 'Tain't healthy to hurry when you eat."