"Lor', Mr. Briggs!" cried this personage, rising respectfully as he
approached, "'ow late you are! Wot 'ave you been a-doin' on? 'Ere I've
been a-keepin' your lamb-chops and truffles 'ot all this time, and if
they's dried up 'taint my fault, nor that of the hoven, which is as good
a hoven as you can wish to bake in. . . ."
She paused breathless, and Briggs smiled blandly.
"Now, Flopsie!" he said in a tone of gentle severity. "Excited again--as
usual! It's bad for your 'elth--very bad! _Hif_ the chops is dried, your
course is plain--cook some more! Not that I am enny ways particular--but
chippy meat is bad for a delicate digestion. And you would not make me
hill, my Flopsie, would you?"
Whereupon he seated himself, and looked condescendingly round the table.
He was too great a personage to be familiar with such inferior creatures
as housemaids, scullery-girls, and menials of that class,--he was only
on intimate terms with the cook, Mrs. Flopper, or, as he called her,
"Flopsie,"--the coachman, and Lady Winsleigh's own maid, Louise Renaud,
a prim, sallow-faced Frenchwoman, who, by reason of her nationality, was
called by all the inhabitants of the kitchen, "mamzelle," as being a
name both short, appropriate, and convenient.
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