“Please, ma’am, is Mr Peter Pax here?” asked Tottie.
“Yes, he is, but he’s engaged.”
Tottie could not doubt the truth of this, for through the half-open door of the hall she saw and heard the little secretary on his little legs addressing the house.
“Please may I wait till he’s done?” asked Tottie.
“You may, if you keep quiet, but I doubt if he’ll ’ave time to see you even w’en he is done,” said the one-eyed one, fiercely.—“D’you like buns or cake best?”
Tottie was much surprised by the question, but stated at once her decided preference for cake.
“Look here,” said Mrs Square, removing a towel from a large basket.
Tottie looked, and saw that the basket was three-quarters full of buns and cakes.
“That,” said the washer-woman, “is their leavin’s. One on ’em called it the debree of the feast, though what that means is best known to hisself. For one hour by the clock these literairies went at it, tooth an’ nail, but they failed to get through with all that was purwided, though they stuffed themselves to their muzzles.—There, ’elp yourself.”
Tottie selected a moderate slab of the indigestible cake, and sat down on a stool to eat it with as much patience as she could muster in the circumstances.