Mrs. Poulter, scowling, placed a minute portion of hard, half-burnt skin on Mrs. Mudge’s plate.
‘Much obliged, Mrs. Poulter, but I want a piece of fat—white fat—just there,’ pointing to it with her fork.
Mrs. Poulter, as we have said, was at enmity with Mrs. Mudge. Mrs. Mudge also was Low Church; and Mrs. Poulter was High. She had just returned from a High Church service at St. Paul’s, and the demand for an undue share of fat was particularly irritating.
‘Really, Mrs. Mudge, you forget that there is hardly enough to go round. For my part, though, I care nothing about it.’
‘If I had thought you did, Mrs. Poulter, I am sure I should not have dared to ask for it.’
‘I believe,’ said Miss Taggart, ‘that the office of fat in diet is to preserve heat.’
‘If fat promotes heat,’ said Miss Everard, ‘and I have no doubt it is so, considering Miss Taggart’s physiological knowledge, my advice is that we abstain from it.’
‘It is a pity,’ said Mr. Goacher, smiling, ‘that animals will not suit our requirements. But to be practical, Miss Toller might be instructed to order legs of mutton with more fat. This reminds me of beef, and beef reminds me of Christmas. It is now the second Sunday in Advent, and there is a subject which you will remember we had agreed to discuss this week.’
This important subject was a proposal by Mrs. Mudge that Miss Toller should dine with them on Christmas Day.
‘You, Mrs. Poulter,’ said Mr. Goacher, ‘are of opinion that we should not invite her?’