it might as well have been in the dust hole! If it had
been locked up - then, to be sure!'
'Drinking!' said the chief porter, with a husky laugh. 'And who
wouldn't drink when he had a chance? Or who would repent it,
except that the drink was gone? Tell me that, Miss Innocence.'
'Lying!' said a great, coarse footman. 'I suppose you mean when I
told you yesterday you were a pretty girl when you didn't pout?
Lying, indeed! Tell us something worth repenting of! Lying is the
way of Gwyntystorm. You should have heard Jabez lying to the cook
last night! He wanted a sweetbread for his pup, and pretended it
was for the princess! Ha! ha! ha!'
'Unkindness! I wonder who's unkind! Going and listening to any
stranger against her fellow servants, and then bringing back his
wicked words to trouble them!' said the oldest and worst of the
housemaids. 'One of ourselves, too! Come, you hypocrite! This is
all an invention of yours and your young man's, to take your
revenge of us because we found you out in a lie last night. Tell
true now: wasn't it the same that stole the loaf and the pie that
sent you with the impudent message?'
As she said this, she stepped up to the housemaid and gave her,
instead of time to answer, a box on the ear that almost threw her
down; and whoever could get at her began to push and bustle and
pinch and punch her.
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