"Where is Helma?"

"Helma, ma'am," says he, "is taking the evening out."

"But--" begins Doris, then stops and bites her lip.

The fish could have stood some of the surplus cookin' that the soup
got. It wa'n't exactly eatable fish, and the potato marbles that come
with it should have been numbered; then they'd be useful in Kelley
pool. Yes, they was a bit hard. Doris gets red under the eyes and
waves out the fish.

She stands it, though, until that two-pound roast is put before Westy.
Not such a whale of a roast, it ain't. It's a one-rib affair, like an
overgrown chop, and it reposes lonesome in the middle of a big silver
platter. It's done, all right. Couldn't have been more so if it had
been cooked in a blast-furnace. Even the bone was charred through.

Westy he gazes at it in his mild, helpless way, and pokes it doubtful
with the carvin'-fork.

"I say, Cyr--er--Snee," says he, "what's this?"

"The roast, sir," says the butler.

"The deuce it is!" says Westy. "Do--do I use a saw or dynamite?" And
he stares across at Doris inquirin'.

"Snee," says Doris, her upper lip trembling "you--you may take it away."