Pray
sit down, Mr. Sagittarius. Here is the ice pudding. Madame, I am sure
you will take some ice. Mr. Ferdinand!"
"Sir?"
"The ice to Madame Sagittarius instantly!"
Mr. Ferdinand, who was trembling in every limb at having to assist at
such a scene in his dining-room, which had hitherto been the very temple
of soft conversation and the most exquisite decorum, advanced towards
Madame, clattering the flat silver dish, and causing the frozen delicacy
that the cook had elegantly posed upon it to run first this way and then
that as if in imitative agitation.
"I cannot," sobbed Madame, beginning once more to catch her breath. "At
such a moment food becomes repulsive!"
"I assure you our cook's ice puddings are quite delicious; aren't they,
grannie?"
"I have no idea, Hennessey," said Mrs. Merillia, who was so upset by
the extraordinary scene at which she was presiding in the character
of hostess, that she mechanically clutched the left bandeau of her
delightful wig, and set it quite a quarter of an inch awry.
"Try it, Madame," cried the Prophet. "I implore you to try it."
Thus adjured Madame detached a large piece of the agile pudding with
some difficulty, and subsided into a morose silence, while her husband
sat with his eyes fixed imploringly upon her, totally regardless of his
social duties.
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