“Nossir,” replied the cook. “Pudding all gone to damn. Sahib come and see. I am knowing nothing. It is bad.”
“What?” roared the Major, and rose to his feet.
“Sah, I am a poor man. You are my father and my mother,” said the cook humbly, and all the congregation said that they were poor men and that the Major was their father and their mother.
The Major said that the congregation were liars.
“Bad?” stammered Forbes. “Puddings can’t go bad. . . .”
“Oh, Mother, Mother!” said Augustus, and cried, his head upon his knees.
“Life in epitome,” murmured Vereker. “Tout lasse; tout passe; tout casse.”
“Strike me blind!” said Halke.
“Feller’s a purple liar. . . . Must be,” opined Berners.
“Beat the lot of them,” suggested Macke. “Puddings keep for ever if you handle ’em properly.”