"Kidneys. By the way, Mary, I don't pay a servant to smear my brown boots with pea soup; I pay her to clean them—to clean them, do you hear? To clean them properly." The calm with which he had entered the room was fast disappearing; his voice rose.
"James, dear, don't excite yourself."
The colonel cut a kidney viciously; as he did so, tell-tale stains appeared on the plate.
"Damn it all, Mary! Do you think I'm a cannibal?"
"Oh, James!"
"Oh James, oh James! It's sickening, Mary. No hot water, not even to shave with, and now raw kidneys; disgusting! You know how I hate my food underdone. Damn it all, Mary, I don't run a household for this sort of thing! Give me the eggs!"
"Joan, fetch your father the eggs!"
"What's the matter with the toast, Mary? It's stone cold!"
"You came down so late, dear."
"I didn't get into the bath-room until twenty minutes past eight. I can't eat this toast."