"What is there to eat?" thought Mr. Lavender, with a soft of horror.
"For I feel as if I were about to devour a meal of human flesh." And he
looked round at the three Germans slouching up shamefacedly behind him.
"Sit down, please," he said. The three men sat down.
"Joe," said Mr. Lavender to his surprised chauffeur, "serve my lunch.
Give me a large helping, and a glass of ale." And, paler than his
holland dust-coat, he sat resolutely down on the bole of a beech, with
Blink on her haunches beside him. While Joe was filling a plate with
pigeon-pie and pouring out a glass of foaming Bass, Mr. Lavender stared
at the three Germans and suffered the tortures of the damned. "I will
not flinch," he thought; "God helping me, I certainly will not flinch.
Nothing shall prevent my going through with it." And his eyes, more
prominent than a hunted rabbit's, watched the approach of Joe with
the plate and glass. The three men also followed the movements of the
chauffeur, and it seemed to Mr. Lavender that their eyes were watering.
"Courage!" he murmured to himself, transfixing a succulent morsel with
his fork and conveying it to his lips. For fully a minute he revolved
the tasty mouthful, which he could not swallow, while the three men's
eyes watched him with a sort of lugubrious surprise.
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