Not but what that snail might as well have come upon anybody else's plate as hers." "What snail ?" "Well, maister, there was a little one upon the edge of her plate when I brought it out; and so it must have been in her few leaves of wintergreen." "How the deuce did a snail get there ?" "That I don't know no more than the dead; but there my gentleman was." "But, Robert, of all places, that was where he shouldn't have been!" "Well, 'twas his native home, come to that; and where else could we expect him to be?
I don't care who the man is, snails and caterpillars always will lurk in close to the stump of cabbages in that tantalizing way." "He wasn't alive, I suppose ?" said Giles, with a shudder on Grace's account.
"Oh no.

He was well boiled.

I warrant him well boiled.

God forbid that a LIVE snail should be seed on any plate of victuals that's served by Robert Creedle....But Lord, there; I don't mind 'em myself--them small ones, for they were born on cabbage, and they've lived on cabbage, so they must be made of cabbage.

But she, the close-mouthed little lady, she didn't say a word about it; though 'twould have made good small conversation as to the nater of such creatures; especially as wit ran short among us sometimes." "Oh yes--'tis all over!" murmured Giles to himself, shaking his head over the glooming plain of embers, and lining his forehead more than ever.