miserable old sod

‘I’m a miserable old sod,’ he said, bending down to pick up his dropped napkin off the floor.
“Oh, no yer not either,” she answered, not even having unfurled her napkin yet. She brushed an insignificant crumb from the edge of the table as the waiter approached carrying two enormous standard-issue heavy white china diner plates. He set one, piled with a mountain of apparently deep-fried odds and ends of shapes atop a felled forest of French fries, in front of Perth.
“Fish and chips,” he said, with a desperately and yet barely disguised lateral lisp. He leveraged the other plate in front of Rose, using the plate’s thick rolled edge to ease her massive basket-weave purse a few inches closer to the periphery of the table, coming dangerously close to upsetting the delicate balance of weights and counterweights that had been, so far, keeping the table upright.
“Chicken Club for Madame,” he said with a satisfied little smile, as if just getting the two oversized plates into position was a day’s work well done. “Is there anything else I can get for you?”
“Yeah, a pair of iced teas. With lemon,” demanded Perth.
“Naw, no lemon in mine, thanks just the same,” said Rose with a lovely Irish brogue in her syllables.
“Certainly. Two iced teas, one no lemon,” said the waiter, who’s name neither Perth – actually Sir Ashen Perth – nor Rose knew.
‘Well,” Perth said, sorting visually the odd shapes on his plate, “that’s what’s been said about me. S’what I hear anyway.” He picked up a red bottle with a tapering tip and proceeded to squirt a spiral of glistening ketchup over the top of the pile, with an extra dollop on the edge with the least clutter.
“Oh, yer just listening at the wrong keyholes again,” replied Rose, removing a frilled pick from one carefully quartered section of her club sandwich. She laid the pick on the table, and delicately raised the sandwich to her mouth, only to have its layers completely disassociate from each other before it’s arrival. She wished now that she had deployed her white napkin before this event, as it would have perhaps caught a large portion of the sandwich’s elements, which now lay both in her lap and on the floor at her feet. The bits on the floor were both beyond salvage and no longer her concern, but she retrieved the parts that lay on the awning of her plaid skirt and attempted to reassemble them on her plate, hoping for some semblance of the former club sandwich. She was only partly successful. Sir Ashen Perth grumbled, picking up his fork and laying siege to the mound before him.