uts there are two schools--the old
and the new. The old school pushes its head well over its plate and
drops the scrut straight from its mouth. The new school emits the
scrut into the fingers of its left hand and therewith deposits it on
the rim of the plate. Albert noticed that Emily was of the new school.
But might she not despise as affectation in him what came natural to
herself? On the other hand, if he showed himself as a prop of the old
school, might she not set her face the more stringently against him?
The chances were that whichever course he took would be the wrong one.

It was then that he had an inspiration--an idea of the sort that comes
to a man once in his life and finds him, likely as not, unable to put
it into practice. Albert was not sure he could consummate this idea of
his. He had indisputably fine teeth--"a proper mouthful of grinders"
in local phrase. But would they stand the strain he was going to
impose on them? He could but try them. Without a sign of nervousness
he raised his spoon, with one scrut in it, to his mouth. This scrut he
put between two of his left-side molars, bit hard on it, and--eternity
of that moment!--felt it and heard it snap in two. Emily also heard
it. He was conscious that at sound of the percussion she started
forward and stared at him. But he did not look at her. Calmly,
systematically, with gradually diminishing crackles, he reduced that
scrut to powder, and washed the powder down with a sip of beer. While
he dealt with the second scrut he talked to Jos about the Borough
Council's proposal to erect an electric power-station on the site of
the old gas-works down Hillport way. He was aware of a slight abrasion
inside his left cheek. No matter. He must be more careful. There were
six scruts still to be negotiated. He knew that what he was doing was
a thing grandiose, unique, epical; a history-making thing; a thing
that would outlive marble and the gilded monuments of princes. Yet he
kept his head. He did not hurry, nor did he dawdle. Scrut by scrut,
he ground slowly but he ground exceeding small. And while he did so
he talked wisely and well. He passed from the power-station to a
first edition of Leconte de Lisle's "Parnasse Contemporain" that he
had picked up for sixpence in Liverpool, and thence to the Midland's
proposal to drive a tunnel under the Knype Canal so as to link up the
main-line with the Critchworth and Suddleford loop-line. Jos was too
amazed to put in a wor