'My dear Sylvana, I wish you particularly to look at this tureen. Very handsome, is it not?'
'Beautiful, but surely very costly.'
'It is costly, my dear, as it is plated, but not so costly as it would be were it silver. Happily, at a dinner party the guests cannot examine it for the plate mark, as they can forks and spoons. In our position we must possess a handsome soup-tureen.'
'We have done without one of metal hitherto. Why buy one now?'
'Sylvana,' said Mrs. Tomkin-Jones, 'I have engaged a butler. With him we must have a suitable tureen.'
'Why, mother?'
'Because, my dear, we shall be constrained to give dinner-parties.'
'We have given nothing above high teas hitherto.'
'But with a butler, dear.'
'Well, with that adjunct?'