You allow no profane
hand to cook your national dish. I trust you will be as successful with
that wicked motor of mine.
PIKE [chuckling]. Lord bless your soul, I've put a self-binder together
after a pony-engine had butted it half-way through a brick deepoe!
[Tucks his napkin in collar of his waistcoat and applies himself to the
meal.]
[HORACE and HAWCASTLE read their papers, now and then casting glances of
great annoyance at PIKE.]
[LADY CREECH lets her periodical rest in her lap, and without any
abating or concealment, fixes PIKE with a basilisk glare which
continues. He is unconscious of all this, his back being three-quarters
to their group.]
VASILI [no pause]. You have studied mechanics at the University?
PIKE [smiling]. University? Law, no! On the old man's farm.
[VASILI nods gravely.]
HAWCASTLE [blandly, to HORACE]. Without any disrespect to you, my dear
fellow, what terrific bounders most of your fellow-countrymen are!
HORACE [greatly irritated]. Do you wonder sis and I have emancipated
ourselves?
HAWCASTLE. Not at all, my dear lad.
VASILI [to PIKE]. Can I persuade you to accept a little of one of my own
national dishes--caviar?
PIKE. Caviar? I've heard of it. I thought it was Rooshian.
VASILI [disturbed, but instantly recovering, himself].
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