t to you is pretty strong
language as addressed to a woman what has her marriage lines I should
hope!"

Brother Copas, bewildered by this onslaught--or, as he put it later,
comparing the encounter with that between Socrates and Gorgias the
Sophist--drenched with that woman's slop-pail of words and blinded
for the moment, received his portion of mutton and drew aside,
vanquished amid peals of laughter, of which he guessed only from its
note that the allusion had been disgusting. Indeed, the whole
atmosphere of the kitchen sickened him; even the portion of mutton
cooling on his plate raised his gorge in physical loathing.
But Brother Bonaday lay helpless in his chamber, without food.
Remembering this, Brother Copas stood his ground and waited, with the
spare plate ready for the invalid's portion.

The babel went on as one after another fought for the spoil.
They had forgotten him, and those at the back of the crowd had found
a new diversion in hustling old Biscoe as he struggled to get away
with his two cutlets of half-warm mutton.

Brother Copas held his gaze upon the joints. His friend's turn came
all but last on the rota; and by perversity--but who could blame it,
in the month of June?--everyone eschewed the pork and bid emulously
for mutton, roast or boiled. He knew that Brother Bonaday abhorred
pork, which, moreover, was indigestible, and by consequence bad for a
weak heart. He stood and watched, gradually losing all hope except
to capture a portion of the mutton near the scrag-end. As for the
leg, it had speedily been cleaned to the bone.

At the last moment a ray of hope shot up, as an expiring candle
flames in the socket. Brother Inchbald--a notoriously stingy man--
whose turn came immediately before Brother Bonaday's, seemed to doubt
that enough of the scrag remained to eke out a full portion; and bent
towards the dish of pork, fingering his chin. Copas seized the
moment to push his empty plate towards the mutton, stealthily, as one
forces a card.

As he did so, another roar of laughter--coarser than before--drew him
to glance over his shoulder. The cause of it was Nurse Branscome,
entering by way of the refectory, with a hot plate held in a napkin
between her hands.

She paused on the threshold, as though the ribaldry took her in the
face like a blast of hot wind.

"Oh, I am late!" she cried. "I came to fetch Brother Bonaday's
dinner. Until five minutes ago no one told me--"

"It's all righ