it, and I remembered I oughtn’t to have loaded up my fork like that—and I jumped—and it all fell off in my napkin. I didn’t know whether it would be etiquette to scrape it up and put it back on my plate so I left it there. The pudding was all right—only I et it with a spoon—my soup spoon—and every one else et theirs with a fork. But it tasted just as good one way as another and I was getting reckless. You always use spoons at New Moon to eat pudding.”
“Why didn’t you watch what the others did and imitate them?”
“Too rattled. But I’ll say this—for all the style, the eats weren’t a bit better than you have at New Moon—no, nor as good, by a jugful. Your Aunt Elizabeth’s cooking would knock the spots off the Hardys’ every time—and they didn’t give you too much of anything! After the dinner was over we went back to the parlour—they called it living-room—and things weren’t so bad. I didn’t do anything out of the way except knock over a bookcase.”
“Perry!”
“Well, it was wobbly. I was leaning against it talking to Mr. Hardy, and I suppose I leaned too hard, for the blooming thing went over. But, righting it and getting the books back seemed to loosen me up and I wasn’t so tongue-tied after that. I got on not too bad—only every once in a long while I’d let slip a bit of slang, before I could catch it. I tell you, I wished I’d taken your advice about talking slang. Once the fat old lady agreed with something I’d said—she had sense if she did have three chins—and I was so tickled to find her on my side that I got excited and said to her, ‘You bet your boots’ before I thought. And I guess I bragged a bit. Do I brag too much, Emily?”
This question had never presented itself to Perry before.
“You do,” said Emily candidly, “and it’s very bad form.”
