“Think of the trenches—and bully beef!” ejaculated Wally. “I say, what’s this?”
He had uncovered a smoking plateful of a queer flat substance, on which attention was immediately focussed.
“Blessed if I know,” Jim answered. “It looks a bit queer.”
“Bless us, that’s potato-cake!” he exclaimed. “I haven’t tasted it for many a year, and it’s one of the best things going. It ought to be eaten so hot that it burns the mouth, so I advise you not to lose time.’ He helped himself, declaring that no considerations of etiquette were to stand in the way of the proper temperature of a potato-cake, and the others somewhat doubtfully followed his example. In a very short time the plate was empty.
“_That’s_ a recipe I’ll take back to Brownie!” was Norah’s significant comment. “Do you think Mrs. Moroney would let me have a lesson on it in the kitchen?”
“Mrs. Moroney seems inclined to eat from one’s hand,” said Mr. Linton. “She’s desperately anxious for us to be comfortable. You know, we were told in London that she had only begun this business since the war—her husband is at the front—so time hasn’t soured her as it sours most landladies. We’re lucky in catching her in the fluid state: later on she’ll solidify into the adamantine condition that is truly landladylike.”
“Meanwhile, she’s rather an old duck,” said Wally. “Hallo, who’s that?”
A small rosy face, crowned with a tangle of yellow curls, was peeping round the doorway. Finding itself observed, it hastily disappeared. Norah snatched a sponge-cake and went in swift pursuit, returning, a moment later, with a very small boy clad in a blue shirt and ridiculously diminutive knickerbockers, who greeted the company with a friendly smile somewhat complicated by a large mouthful of cake.
“Well, you’re a cheerful person,” Jim said. “What’s your name?”
“Timsy,” said the new-comer. “And I’m eight.”
“I call that genius,” said Wally. “He knew you’d ask him that next, so he saved you the trouble. Do you live here, Timsy?”
“Fightin’ the Gair-mins. They’s bad—they’s after hurtin’ him in the laig.”
“Did they?” said Wally, sympathetically. “Poor daddy! Is he better?”
“I dunno will he. I asked the postman, an’ he said daddy couldn’t post ’em.”
“That wasn’t nice of the postman,” said Jim. “What would you do with them if you got them?”