“For I’m in haste to get home,” he added, “where I’ll pay myself for a cold dinner by a hot supper. So bestir, Mrs. Betteridge, and don’t keep me waiting.” “Certainly, your Worship, sir; by all means, Squire Thornby.” And she called to a chambermaid, “Moll, lay a cloth for the Squire in the Thistle, and be quick—” “I said the Rose, Mrs. Betteridge. Didn’t you hear? Thistle be damned!—I never said Thistle.” “The Rose, Squire? The Thistle is far the better room—_far_ the better, your Worship.” “Lea’ me be the judge o’ that, woman. I’ll dine in the Rose, and there’s an end.” Whereupon he turned toward the stairs. “Your pardon, Squire,—I wouldn’t offend your Worship for anything,—but the Rose is bespoke already for dinner-time, and truly indeed most o’ the quality that stops here prefers the Thistle.” “But I prefer the Rose, and the quality that stop here may be hanged, rat ’em.” “I’m terrible sorry, your Worship. But all’s ready in the Rose for t’other party, sir; and the gentleman as sent orders was most particular about having the Rose—though for my part I can’t see why he should want that room when he might ’a’ had the Thistle, and so I thought to myself at the time, sir; and when I seed your Worship arrive just now, thinks I to myself, how lucky it is t’other gentleman bespoke the Rose, because now there’s the Thistle for his Worship. And sure indeed the cloth’s laid for t’other party, and their dinner a’most cooked, and we expect them every minute—” Beaten down by this torrent of speech, the Squire waved his hand for silence, and said, with surly resignation: “Oh, well, then, the Thistle. Who is it has bespoke the Rose, drat ’em?” “Mr. Foxwell, your Worship, a neighbour of yours, sir, if I may say so.” The Squire gave a start, and the cloud on his brow deepened. “Foxwell!” he echoed. “A neighbour of mine!—H’m! Yes, there is a gentleman of that name living in my part of the county.” With a parenthetic “More’s the pity!” under his breath, he added, in a kind of dogged, grumbling way, “What the deuce is he dining here for?” “Why, sir, he’s been to the South to fetch his niece home to Foxwell Court, and they’re coming in a po’shay, and stopping here for dinner. He sent his man Caleb ahead on horseback to order it cooked, so they shouldn’t be delayed, for they have eight bad miles yet from here to Foxwell Court.” “Ecod!” said Squire Thornby, “I have the same bad miles to Thornby Hall—or five o’ them, at least,—and I ordered a cold dinner so _I_ shouldn’t be delayed. But, damn it, now I come to think on’t, I’ll have something cooked, so I will! I presume my belly is as much to me as Mr. Foxwell’s is to him. I don’t see why I should eat cold while he eats hot. Have you got anything on the fire, Mrs. Betteridge?” He strode into the kitchen to see for himself, followed by the landlady. “That chicken is almost done,” said he. “’Tis what Mr. Foxwell ordered, your Worship.”