E. M. Forster: Howards End

37. CHAPTER XXXVII (continued)

Helen shook her head. "Impossible. Tibby was far too young to be given coffee at that time."

"Was father alive?"

"Yes."

"Then you're right and it must have been soup. I thinking of much later--that unsuccessful visit of Aunt Juley's, when she didn't realise that Tibby had grown up. It was coffee then, for he threw it down on purpose. There was some rhyme, 'Tea, coffee--coffee tea,' that she said to him every morning at breakfast. Wait a minute--how did it go?"

"I know--no, I don't. What a detestable boy Tibby was!"

"But the rhyme was simply awful. No decent person could put up with it."

"Ah, that greengage-tree," cried Helen, as if the garden was also part of their childhood. Why do I connect it with dumb-bells? And there come the chickens. The grass wants cutting. I love yellowhammers."

Margaret interrupted her. "I have got it," she announced.

"'Tea, tea, coffee, tea,
Or chocolaritee.'

"That every morning for three weeks. No wonder Tibby was wild."

"Tibby is moderately a dear now," said Helen.

"There! I knew you'd say that in the end. Of course he's a dear."

A bell rang.

"Listen! what's that?"

Helen said, "Perhaps the Wilcoxes are beginning the siege."

"What nonsense--listen!"