Page 123 - sons-and-lovers

The colliers, their faces scarcely blackened, were troop-
ing home again. Morel hated to go back. He loved the sunny
morning. But he had gone to pit to work, and to be sent
home again spoilt his temper.
‘Good gracious, at this time!’ exclaimed his wife, as he
entered.
‘Can I help it, woman?’ he shouted.
‘And I’ve not done half enough dinner.’
‘Then I’ll eat my bit o’ snap as I took with me,’ he bawled
pathetically. He felt ignominious and sore.
And the children, coming home from school, would
wonder to see their father eating with his dinner the two
thick slices of rather dry and dirty bread-and-butter that
had been to pit and back.
‘What’s my dad eating his snap for now?’ asked Arthur.
‘I should ha’e it holled at me if I didna,’ snorted Morel.
‘What a story!’ exclaimed his wife.
‘An’ is it goin’ to be wasted?’ said Morel. ‘I’m not such a
extravagant mortal as you lot, with your waste. If I drop a
bit of bread at pit, in all the dust an’ dirt, I pick it up an’ eat
it.’
‘The mice would eat it,’ said Paul. ‘It wouldn’t be wast-
ed.’
‘Good bread-an’-butter’s not for mice, either,’ said Mo-
rel. ‘Dirty or not dirty, I’d eat it rather than it should be
wasted.’
‘You might leave it for the mice and pay for it out of your
next pint,’ said Mrs. Morel.
‘Oh, might I?’ he exclaimed.

1 Sons and Lovers