I wished the ground would open and swallow me. Was that unlucky lobster, then, to haunt me all the days of my life?
“There was no joke about it, I can tell you that!” said Whipcord, with a significant grimace; “was there, Daly?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Daly, looking mysterious; “there was one rather good joke about it, if what I was told is true.”
“What’s that?” demanded the company.
“It was paid for!”
Don’t you pity me, reader? I was obliged to join in the laugh, and appear to enjoy it.
“They’re rather down on you,” said Hawkesbury, amiably.
“Oh, they like their little joke,” said I.
“So they do—who’s got the butter?” said Doubleday—“so does everybody—hang it, the milk’s burnt; don’t you taste it burnt, Field-Marshal? I’ll give my old woman notice—so does everybody, except—the muffins, please, Crow—except your precious friend Smith. I don’t suppose he ever enjoyed a joke in his life now, or—help yourself, Hawkesbury—or saw one either, for the matter of that, notwithstanding his bull’s-eyes.”
“I don’t know,” said I, relieved again to divert the talk from myself, and glad at the same time to put in a mild word for my friend, “I think Smith has a good deal of fun in him.”