Kate. That one's stale. It would break your teeth to eat it. (She throws the cake into the bucket.) And the mice have nibbled that one. And there's another as bad. (She throws both pieces into the bucket.)
(Brown, the servant man, opens the door from yard and enters. He is elderly, and with a pessimistic expression of face, relieved somewhat by the sly humour that is in his eyes. He walks slowly to the centre of the kitchen, looks at Kate, and then turns his eyes, with a disgusted shake of the head, towards the dresser as if searching for something.)
Brown. Well! Well! Pigs get fat and men get lean in this house.
Kate. It's you again, is it? And what are you looking now?
Brown. I'm looking a spanner for the boss. The feedboard to the threshing machine got jammed just when halfway through the first stack, and he is in a lamentable temper.
Kate (uneasily). Is he? (She starts hurriedly to clear up the table.)
Brown (watching her slyly to see what effect his words have). And he's been grumbling all morning about the way things is going on in this house. Bread and things wasted and destroyed altogether.
Kate. Well, it's all Miss Mary's fault. I told her about this bread yesterday forenoon, and she never took any heed to me.
Brown. Miss Mary? (With a deprecatory shake of his head.) What does a slip of a girl like that know about housekeeping and her not home a half-year yet from the boarding-school in the big town, and with no mother nor nobody to train her. (He stares in a puzzled way at the dresser.) I don't see that spanner at all. Did you see it, Kate?