“You had better eat it,” whispered Paul Newland. “It is very good yeast dumpling, and you will like it when you are accustomed to it.”
“With all my heart,” answered Digby, laughing. “I did not want to make such a fuss about the matter. I like duff very well, only I really thought that they had forgotten to put the meat on my plate.”
“Don’t touch the stuff, Heathcote, take my advice,” exclaimed Spiller, in a low tone, across the table. “You have got plenty of good things in your box to feed on, I dare say. All new fellows have; and there is nothing like holding out against injustice.”
“Thank you,” said Digby, pretty well guessing Spiller’s drift. “I had rather not lose my dinner. Very good stuff, though; capital duff; a little sugar and wine would make it perfect.”
He ate it all up.
“Here, Jane,” he exclaimed, holding out his plate; “say that I find it very good, and should like some more.”
Jane, who was pretty well up to the tricks young gentlemen were capable of playing, looked suspiciously at his pockets, and then under the table, to ascertain whether he really had eaten up the dumpling; but even she was assured by his ingenuous countenance, and so she went up to the head table, and said that Master Digby Heathcote liked the yeast dumpling and wanted some more.
Mrs Pike looked, also, very suspiciously at Digby.
“I’ll give him some,” said Mr Yates, who was assisting in serving out the provisions.
Mrs Pike, with feminine tact, would have given a small piece, not to disgust him; but he, whether with malice or from thoughtlessness, put very nearly a whole one on the plate. Some brown sugar, however, was added by Susan on its way to Digby; and when he got it, he liked the taste so much, that although not aware that Mrs Pike’s sharp eyes were on him, he sat manfully to work; and yeast dumpling being of a very compressible nature, he demolished the whole mass in a very short time.