"Any more coffee, twins?
Pass up those tea-cakes when you've helped yourself, Crow.

I got them for twopence apiece--not bad, eh?
I say, I suppose you've heard what's up in Hawk Street, eh ?--jam to the Field-Marshal there.

Yes, Harris of the Imports told me: he heard it from Morgan, who knows a fellow who knows old Merrett.

Plenty more potted meat in the cupboard; get out some, Batchelor, that's a good fellow.

The fact is--sugar enough in yours, Paddy ?--the fact is, the old boy is going to put in a nephew--pass up your cup, Adam, Abel, what's your name, you with the paper in your button-hole ?--what was your mother about when she gave you such idiotic names, both of you?
I'd like to give her a piece of my mind!--a nephew or something of the sort--that'll be the third kid in the last half-year landed in on us-- don't you call that lobster a good one for eighteen pence, Paddy, my boy?
Never mind, I'll let them know I'm not going to train up all their young asses for nothing--hullo! Batchelor, beg pardon, old man; I forgot you were one of them!" This occasioned a laugh, which made me look very self-conscious; which Doubleday saw, and tried to help me out.
"If they were all like you," he said, with a patronising smile, "it wouldn't hurt; but that bull's-eye chum of yours is a drop too much for an office like ours.