"It does matter, sir! I am not accustomed to treat my guests in this way
Maria! who had been cutting that beef? Three pounds of that beef have been
cut away since one o'clock to-day," and with flashing eyes, and a finger
twinkling all over with rings, she pointed towards the guilty joint.
Whether Maria had been dispensing secret charities, or kept company with
an occult policeman partial to roast-beef, I do not know; but she looked
very much alarmed, and said, Indeed, and indeed, mum, she had not touched
a morsel of it!--not she.
"Confound the beef!" says Clive, carving on.
"She has been cutting it!" cries the Campaigner, bringing her fist down
with a thump upon the table. "Mr. Pendennis! you saw the beef yesterday;
eighteen pounds it weighed, and this is what comes up of it! As if there
was not already ruin enough in the house!"
"D--n the beef!" cries out Clive.
"No! no! Thank God for our good dinner! Benedicti benedicamus, Clivy my
boy," says the Colonel, in a tremulous voice.
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