Lady to the left going on valiantly and speaking to everyone who cares to listen, while Mrs. Johnson beams beside her: "There she used to sit as bold as brass, and the fun she used to make of things no one _could_ believe--knowing her now. She used to make faces at the mistress through the--" Mrs. Punt keeping steadily on: "The contents of the stummik at any rate _ought_ to be examined." Voice of Mr. Johnson. "Elfrid, pass the mustid down." Miriam leaning across the table: "Elfrid!" "Once she got us all kept in. The whole school!" Miriam, more insistently: "Elfrid!" Uncle Pentstemon, raising his voice defiantly: "Trounce 'er again I would if she did as much now. That I would! Dratted mischief!" Miriam, catching Mr. Polly's eye: "Elfrid! This lady knows Canterbury. I been telling her you been there." Mr. Polly: "Glad you know it." The lady shouting: "I like it." Mrs. Larkins, raising her voice: "I won't '_ave_ my girls spoken of, not by nobody, old or young." Pop! imperfectly located. Mr. Johnson at large: "_Ain't_ the beer up! It's the 'eated room." Bessie: "Scuse me, sir, passing so soon again, but--" Rest inaudible. Mr. Polly, accommodating himself: "Urr-oo! Right? Right O." The knives and forks, probably by some secret common agreement, clash and clatter together and drown every other sound. "Nobody 'ad the least idea 'ow 'E died,--nobody.... Willie, don't _golp_ so. You ain't in a 'urry, are you? You don't want to ketch a train or anything,--golping like that!" "D'you remember, Grace, 'ow one day we 'ad writing lesson...." "Nicer girls no one ever 'ad--though I say it who shouldn't." Mrs. Johnson in a shrill clear hospitable voice: "Harold, won't Mrs. Larkins '_ave_ a teeny bit more fowl?" Mr. Polly rising to the situation. "Or some brawn, Mrs. Larkins?" Catching Uncle Pentstemon's eye: "Can't send _you_ some brawn, sir?" "Elfrid!" Loud hiccup from Uncle Pentstemon, momentary consternation followed by giggle from Annie. The narration at Mr. Polly's elbow pursued a quiet but relentless course. "Directly the new doctor came in he said: 'Everything must be took out and put in spirits--everything.'" Willie,--audible ingurgitation. The narration on the left was flourishing up to a climax. "Ladies," she sez, "dip their pens _in_ their ink and keep their noses out of it!" "Elfrid!"--persuasively. "Certain people may cast snacks at other people's daughters, never having had any of their own, though two poor souls of wives dead and buried through their goings on--" Johnson ruling the storm: "We don't want old scores dug up on such a day as this--" "Old scores you may call them, but worth a dozen of them that put them to their rest, poor dears." "Elfrid!"--with a note of remonstrance. "If you choke yourself, my lord, not another mouthful do you '_ave_. No nice puddin'! Nothing!" "And kept us in, she did, every afternoon for a week!"