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Wanted: A Cook

by Alan Dale · English · Gutenberg #43983 · 475,373 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Wanted: A Cook

Author: Alan Dale


        
Release date: October 19, 2013 [eBook #43983]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WANTED: A COOK ***

WANTED: A COOK




WANTED: A COOK
Domestic Dialogues

_By_
ALAN DALE


INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS




Copyright, 1904
The Bobbs-Merrill Company




_To_ JENNIE SHALEK: _housewife_,

     who, in my hour of drab and dreary cooklessness, when my heart
     fainted, and tragedy impended, sent her four fair daughters to my
     aid, with an ancient Hibernian curio destined to eke out a
     livelihood at my expense; who knows the true inwardness of this
     tragic topic, and who would gladly lend a willing hand and an
     unwilling cook to any sufferer, I gratefully dedicate these simple,
     plaintive dialogues.

  ALAN DALE
  _New York City_,
  _September, 1904_




WANTED: A COOK




CHAPTER I


My Letitia! It was indeed a proud and glowing moment when I slipped the
little golden circlet on her fair, slim, girlish finger, and realized
that she was assuredly mine. We were so eminently suited to each
other--both young, enthusiastic, and unspotted from the world. We had
our own pet theories, and long before marriage we had communed on that
favorite, misunderstood topic--the sanctity of the home.

Letitia was exceedingly well-read, and the polish upon her education
shone. It was no mere thin veneer, to be worn off by a too brutal
contact with the rough edges of the world. It was an ingrained polish.
She adored the classics. Other girls would sit down and pore over the
Sarah-Jane romances of the hour. My Letitia liked Virgil. In French she
was fearfully familiar with Molière and Racine. In German she coquetted
with Schiller in the most delightful manner. She knew most of the
students' readings of Shakespeare. In fact, she fascinated me by her
arch refinement.

We were both great sticklers for refinement. We pitied the poor silly
things who knew how to sew and cook. Refinement--we were both certain of
it--was the cultivation of the gloriously useless. We despised the
abominably useful. It was so sordid. We felt convinced that our "home"
could be conducted upon suave and easy lines, without abandoning even
one of our theories. Letitia told me that "home" was the Anglo-Saxon
_ham_, and I was so much in love with her, that I didn't mind in the
least. In fact, I hinted that I had suspected as much. How could "home"
be anything else but Anglo-Saxon?

My little girl had been "finished" in Paris, at a select, and pleasingly
dismal, _pension_ in the Avenue du Roule. I, myself, had taken a B. A.
at Oxford. Yet we were triumphantly patriotic Americans. We returned to
these shores absolutely convinced that they were beyond criticism. After
all, people only go abroad in order that they may realize the
inferiority of Europe. They never go for a "good time," or for mere
frivolous amusement. The great armies of Americans in London and Paris
are there simply because they prefer America and want that fact brought
home to them. If you don't believe me, ask them. Nail them down to their
patriotism.

However, both Letitia and I grudgingly admitted that in England home
life did seem a bit more potent than on this side.

"It naturally would," said Letitia, "because you see 'home' is really an
Anglo-Saxon idea."

But we were going to have a home of our own in the very midst of
seething New York. The mere notion of a vulgar, degrading
"boarding-house" was detestable to us, while as for the "apartment
hotel," where you sat at dinner in your best clothes with a crowd of
unsympathetic strangers, we sniffed at the bare suggestion. We wanted a
little refuge, tiny yet dainty, where we could be alone to live our
lives. "To live our lives" was one of Letitia's expressions. She
abstracted it unconsciously, I believe, from Ibsen. A chaste and
cherishable resort, where of an evening my wife could read _The Iliad_
in the original, and I, in a becoming smoking-jacket and velvet
slippers, could work at my _Lives of Great Men_, was what we clamored to
possess. And possess it we fully intended to do.

I may add that Letitia also believed in the "new thought." She was of
the opinion that you could will anything you wanted. She doted on
sitting still, and sending out telepathic waves from her cunning little
brain, and I loved to look at her telepathing. She was at her
prettiest.

Aunt Julia Dinsmore, Letitia's only relative, and a sedate old lady with
drab ideas, mentioned something about the "servant question" as she
listened to our domestic rhapsodies. She suggested to us that there must
be some satisfactory reason to explain the lack of well-appointed homes
in New York. Americans liked comfort just as well as other people, said
she. Did we suppose that they were uncomfortable because they preferred
discomfort? And again she referred to the "servant question."

The "servant question"! How we laughed! Letitia nudged me under the
table and arched her eyebrows. She turned to Aunt Julia and quoted one
of Shakespeare's most beautiful passages:

  "How well in thee appears
  The constant service of the antique world,
  When service sweat for duty, not for meed!"

It is one of the many charming things in _As You Like It_. Aunt Julia
said that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the case. Perhaps it
hadn't. In fact, as I think it over now, I can't quite see its
relevancy. Yet what mattered relevancy? It was a treat to listen to
Letitia when she quoted.

"Your Shakespeare will die when your cook comes in," said Aunt Julia,
and she laughed. People are so fond of laughing at their own epigrams.
It is most irritating--just as though the utterance of this perverted
form of philosophy were a relief.

"You dear silly old thing!" exclaimed Letitia to her aunt, "we shall not
worry. We don't read the comic papers. Americans believe all the
wretched jokes, dished up for them, to be founded on fact. Americans
believe anything. They have no time to think for themselves. Have they,
Archie?"

All I could reply was: "No." I should like to have been pungent and
clever, but somehow or other, I never can follow Letitia. She generally
appeals to me with a deft query, destined to color her own delightful
train of thought, and I have nothing better to say than "no"--or
occasionally "yes."

After that, Aunt Julia dropped the "servant question," as she called it.
The "servant question"! As though there could be such a question! How
could refined and educated people elect to permit the mere matter of
domestic drudgery to be a "question"? Art might be a question. Science
was certainly a question. But to allude to the handmaiden, who opens
your front door, or to the person who Marylands your terrapin, as a
"question" was too ludicrous. It was making mountains out of molehills.
Ah! Letitia and I were for the glorious mountains, with their sun-kissed
peaks and their exultant elevation.

We were neither of us freighted with that detestable thing dubbed a
"sense of humor." Thank goodness for that! A sense of humor is a
handicap in the world's race. People afflicted with it seem to spend
their time laughing at their friends, scoffing at serious situations,
and extracting spurious merriment from the gravity and dignity of life.
We both believed that a sense of humor was unrefined. Comic
story-tellers, comic poets, comic critics--how we loathed them! They
were parasites on the face of things, giving you stones when you craved
bread--furnishing nasty, sickly ridicule in lieu of delicate,
intellectual analysis. Thank goodness, that both Letitia and I had been
spared the curse of a "sense of humor." We had been educated beyond it.

Aunt Julia, as I said, was henceforth silent--or comparatively
silent--on her banal, squalid "servant question." But she was rampant
and interfering again when we selected the pretty little apartment--in a
beautiful neighborhood--that was to be our home--Letitia's and mine! We
took it without a question, there being nothing that we wanted to know.
It was not one of those American institutions in which, to get from the
drawing-room to the dining-room, you were forced to walk through the
bedrooms, no matter who happened to be in them, asleep, or dressing. It
had a "private hall," and each room possessed a window. Why each room
shouldn't possess a window, I can't explain, but windows in up-to-date
apartments are a luxury, and not a necessity. I dare say that they are
very old-fashioned, but they are one of the last remnants of old fashion
to which I cling.

It was a small apartment with "six rooms and bath"--very cozy, and quite
light and cheerful without furniture. After we had seen our dainty
"belongings" moved in, we were bound to admit that some people might say
that it all looked "stuffy." Letitia didn't think so; nor did I. Much we
cared!

Still, it was quite remarkable what a difference furniture made. It
really seemed to be in the way. The drawing-room was almost blocked up
with its chairs and sofas, what-nots, and ottomans. It had seemed quite
a spacious apartment when in its natural state. One would have thought
that it mutely rebelled at the indignity of furniture. Yet one must
furnish!

The only thing to do in our drawing-room was to sit down. It was quite
comfortable sitting down. It seemed like refuge to get to a chair--out
of harm's way. When up and doing, you had to dodge and to steer
yourself. We often went there before we were married, just to get used
to the position of the furniture. In front of the fireplace--where there
would never be any fire, as everything was steam-heated--we placed the
tiger-rug, with the real tiger-head, that Aunt Julia gave us. It was
rather dark by the fireplace, as a bookcase, a what-not, a dear little
_tête-à-tête_ chair and a "cosy corner" were in its vicinity and we
always fell over the tiger's head. It was most amusing at first. I
laughed when it brought Letitia down. Letitia laughed when she saw me
prone. But one tires so quickly of innocent pleasure! The last time we
visited the apartment before the gorgeous day when it literally became
"ours," I fell over the tiger-head, and--it palled. For the first time
it didn't seem so funny. I am glad to say that Letitia laughed just the
same, her mind being more ingenuous than mine.

In the dining-room, too, there was a wealth of furniture. It was such a
cheerful room when we first saw it, but when curtained and upholstered,
it was necessary to switch on the electric light in order to see where
the table was. Of course, this didn't matter at all. It was merely a new
experience and deliciously odd. Still, we both agreed that if we
preferred air and light to material, bodily comfort, our "home" was
infinitely brighter unfurnished. As a matter of fact, the simplest
necessities of domestic life were encumbrances. We had to ponder over an
extra chair. The disposal of a small footstool called for a
mathematical mind. As for the table, it had--like most other
tables--four legs, but three of them were ridiculously in the way. They
seemed like abnormal growths.

We were delighted at all this innovation. We prattled about our "home"
by the hour. These--or rather, this--might be the ancestral halls of our
great-great-grandchildren, though at present it seemed destined for one
generation at a time--and a small generation, too. There was scarcely
room for even an ancestor, and I couldn't help feeling thankful that
ancestors were not usual in New York.

The bedrooms surprised us. They were called bedrooms, because nobody had
yet thought out any other name for them. We were both loud in praise of
their coziness. They were simply full of coziness. There was no room for
anything else. Furnished with ledges or bunks as on board ship, they
would have been most spacious and agreeable. With beds in them they
bulged. Letitia admitted this, when I called her attention to it. She
laughed and quoted Ben Jonson's memorable words: "I will not lodge thee
by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie a little further to make
thee a room." And, as usual, I kissed her. Her splendid thoughts were
independent of mere space. They rose above and superior to close
modernity. Thank goodness, again, for the lack of a sense of humor! With
it, I might have said things about Chaucer, Spenser, and Beaumont, at
which the groundlings, would, perchance, have smiled. The humorists,
so-called, would sell their souls for a laugh.

We never once looked at the kitchen. Not for worlds would we have
betrayed so mean and petty a spirit. Undoubtedly there are women who
would have peered into this food-resort, and have held forth on such
disgusting topics as "tubs" and "hot and cold water." Ugh! How
nauseating! Letitia simply passed it by with a shrug. It _had_ to be
there, of course, but it had nothing to do with our case. Cook would
probably know if it were properly appointed. This was what cook was for.
The agent had told us that a bedroom for a cook was conveniently
adjoining. To which Letitia had replied, in evident amusement, "No
doubt. Why not?" I thought it clever, and I believe that the agent did,
for he turned his face quickly away.

Aunt Julia had supplied the cooking utensils, I am thankful to say. We
had no interest in them. We agreed that they were necessary, but we were
willing to pay, and to pay well, for a careful custodian of that sort of
thing. But as I began to say before, Aunt Julia, after having wisely
dropped the "servant question," became rampant and interfering on the
subject of our apartment. She asked distressing questions about "dumb
waiters," and "janitors," and "washing."

Letitia was reading Cicero's _De Amicitia_ at the time, I remember,
while I was making notes of some incidents in the life of Goethe that I
meant to incorporate in my book. I bore with Aunt Julia most patiently.
As I could not answer her questions, I parried them very good-naturedly.
After all, she was Letitia's only relative, and she was old, and rather
infirm. One must be polite, even when it would be excruciatingly
exquisite to be otherwise.

"I must say," remarked Aunt Julia, "that you don't seem to have looked
at anything. You have taken an apartment, and you know nothing at all
about it. You are a couple of silly children."

"Pardon me," I said, "but we have looked at all that it was necessary to
look at. I don't expect Letitia to grovel."

"Grovel!" cried Aunt Julia, "grovel! I like that. In my time, a
housewife knew what she was doing--"

"That's just it," I interrupted. "In your time, Aunt Julia, there were
housewives. I hate the phrase. Housewife--wife of the house. I want my
wife for myself, not for my house. In your time, I dare say, women so
far forgot themselves--yes, forgot themselves, Aunt Julia--as to discuss
the laundry, or the market, with their husbands. That, I may say, is not
our idea. I want your dear little niece to stay in her drawing-room--"

"Stay in her--what?" cried Aunt Julia ferociously.

"I repeat: her drawing-room. Oh, I know that you would prefer that I say
'parlor.' I decline to do so. It is a word that grates on my nerves. In
England, they have 'parlors' in hovels. You enter the 'parlor' direct
from the street. It is quite unnecessary to cast a stigma on a room.
Drawing-room sounds much more refined. With us it will be drawing-room."

"I think Archie is right, Aunt Julia," said Letitia, looking up from _De
Amicitia_, and smiling at me--dear little girl! "It is a prettier term,
isn't it? 'Parlor' sounds so awfully poor, and--well, dear, we are
really not awfully poor. It is the little refinements of life that
count. I don't think I could feel at home in a parlor. I just adore the
notion of my drawing-room."

Aunt Julia laughed. It wasn't one of those laughs that signify
merriment. It was that contemptuous something that we call a laugh for
want of a better word. I should classify it as a snortch, or a sniffth.
It angered me considerably.

"There are no drawing-rooms," continued Letitia's relative, "in
One-Hundred-and-Fourth Street, near Columbus Avenue. I should think you
would be satisfied to hear them called 'parlors.' Cubby-holes would be
more appropriate. Of course, I may be all wrong. Of course. Ha! Ha! To
talk as though you owned Marlborough House, or Buckingham Palace, or
Vanderbilt's mansion! Ha! Ha! It is too preposterous."

I saw a flush on my Letitia's face. She had closed her Cicero with a
sigh. All this small-talk was nerve-racking.

"A drawing-room," persisted Aunt Julia, "is literally the room to which
the guests withdraw after dinner. I imagine that your guests will
withdraw to it not only after dinner, but after luncheon and breakfast
as well. In fact they will be obliged to withdraw there or sit on the
fire-escape. By-the-by, have you a fire-escape?"

As though I knew or cared! Fancy selecting a home, and inquiring if
there were any means by which you could escape from it. I did not
answer. My mind was brooding over the question of withdrawing from the
dining-room. Next to our dining-room was the bathroom. It was rather an
odd arrangement, especially as bathing is considered dangerous
immediately after eating. The man who designed our "home" evidently
thought that a bath after a meal was a good thing. Otherwise, why place
the bathroom next to the dining-room?

I recovered my equanimity instantly. "You are trying to discourage us,
Aunt Julia," I said, "but it won't work. You can call the drawing-room a
'parlor' if you like. But we shan't. Nor are we trying to ape Buckingham
Palace. We are too American for that. The trouble here is that whenever
you try to be nice, refined, and courteous, you are accused of aping
something. We ape nothing at all. We prefer a drawing-room because it
has a more cultured sound. Just as we intend to call the china-closet a
'pantry.' This is a free country."

"Fiddlesticks!" cried Aunt Julia. "You are very devoted to your
drawing-room and your pantry, but I'm grieved to think that a sensible
girl like Letitia, and an able-bodied young man, like yourself, haven't
thought it worth while to ask the janitor about the disposition of the
garbage."

That settled it. I had endured a good deal. I had been patient, polite,
kindly, and amused. Yes, I had been half-amused. When I heard Aunt Julia
sully her lips with a word so coarse as "garbage" in the presence of my
innocent little unsophisticated Letitia, I decided that the time for
protest had indeed arrived.

"Mrs. Dinsmore," I said--not even "Aunt Julia"--"I must really ask you
to avoid such disgusting words and topics, or, if you must mention them,
to do so to me alone. I can stand it--perhaps. But it is not nice for
your niece. There may be such a thing as garbage in the world--I believe
that there is--but one does not care to allude to it at home."

I looked at Letitia. A slight expression of disgust manifested itself on
her face, although she tried for my sake to conceal it.

"It is a word that has come to us, Archie, from the old French _garbe_,"
she said quickly, with her own admirable tact. "It was once more
disgusting than it now seems to be. Americans use it to express kitchen
refuse or anything of that sort. Of course, our cook will have no
refuse, for we shall get a good one. Probably, in low, unrefined
households they do have refuse. It is possibly quite general--for
average people do not understand the refinement of living. Aunt Julia
meant nothing, I am sure."

Letitia, the sweetest and most diplomatic girl I have ever met, rose and
kissed Aunt Julia, and I was bound to feel mollified. Not that Aunt
Julia was in the least upset by my dignity. In fact, she was convulsed
with laughter, but it was the same sort of laughter that I prefer to
call a snortch, or a sniffth.

"If you ever eat oranges," she persisted in continuing, "what are you
going to do with the peel? And your potato skins? And your melon rinds?
And your old bones? And your tin cans? And your grocery boxes? That is
what we unrefined people call garbage. But I dare say that you and
Letitia will put it all in your drawing-room and make a cozy corner of
it, or tie it up with blue ribbons. You silly children!" she cried,
drying the laughter from her eyes, "if you weren't so amusing I could be
angry with you."

Letitia looked at me. I looked at Letitia. She put her index finger to
her lips to signify silence. It dawned upon us both that Aunt
Julia--poor old thing--was cursed with the terrible commodity known as
the "sense of humor." That is the way it always manifests itself. It is
irrelevant laughter at serious subjects. My opinion is that it is a
disease, and that a remedy for it will be found one day. They seem to be
discovering that remedy in the comic papers, which no longer, I have
heard, appeal to the afflicted.

Letitia went on reading _De Amicitia_; I renewed my acquaintance with
Goethe, and Aunt Julia fell asleep with a book in her hands. I couldn't
help seeing that it was called _Hints to Housewives_. Certainly
Letitia's only relative was a bit disenchanting.




CHAPTER II


It was while we were honeymooning at Niagara, that Aunt Julia, in a
letter dated from her home, at Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson, wrote to tell us
that she had secured a cook for us, a colored woman, who had been highly
recommended, and whom we should find awaiting us when we took possession
of our cunning little domicile.

"I need not say, my dear Letitia," she wrote, "that a good servant is
merely the result of a sensible and far-seeing mistress. Be firm with
her, but not necessarily unsympathetic. Remember that the servant-girl
question and its many evils constitute a grave national problem. I think
you may consider yourselves lucky. Anna Carter appears to be an
excellent servant."

This letter reached us the day before we returned to New York. Letitia
read it aloud to me at breakfast as we sat before our morning eggs. It
had a prosaic sound, but--well, morning eggs are not freighted with
romance. Unfortunately, we were neither of us built for a diet of
rose-leaves and dew-drops, delightful though they would have been,
during the honeymoon. I am, however, bound to say that Letitia's
extremely healthy appetite did not disenchant me. Nor, when I returned
for a second egg, furtively during the first week, but more boldly later
on, did Letitia repine at my materialism. One thing we did avoid--and
that was the distasteful discussion of food. We ate what was placed
before us without comment. Only once was this tacit rule broken. It was
when, at dinner, Letitia rompingly annexed an evil oyster. Even then,
she merely uttered a little cry of pain--which went to my heart--and
dropped the subject; also the oyster.

"It is really awfully good of Aunt Julia," she said, pretending not to
notice that I had arrived at egg number three. "She is a dear, good old
soul. I am delighted at the prospect of a colored maid. Aren't you,
Archie?"

"They are always very good-tempered and docile," I replied, "and with
you, Letitia, any girl will be exceedingly happy. Ah, in the years to
come, Anna Carter may be our 'old retainer,' to be pensioned off. Think
of her weeping, and begging to be allowed to remain with us--clinging to
us, as it were, and even offering to stay without wages."

"Which I should never allow,"--Letitia's tone was wonderfully firm--"I
can't imagine how self-respecting people permit such a thing. They
always do it in plays. I shan't countenance it. If Anna persists in
staying with us, when she is too old to work, then she shall have
exactly the same wages. Am I not right, Archie?"

"Always," I cried admiringly; "always, my dear girl."

"I think," said Letitia musingly, "I think a colored maid always looks
so neat and attractive in a plain black dress, buttoned down the front,
and a white cap--something fluffy and lacey--a wide, stiff, white collar
and pretty cuffs. I shall dress Anna Carter like that. I have quite made
up my mind to it. Oh, Archie," she went on rapturously, "don't you think
that the _bonnes_ in Paris--you see them in the Champs Elysées, and
everywhere--look perfectly lovely in the caps with the long satin
ribbons trailing to the ground?"

"But they are nurses, dear," I suggested, just for the sake of arguing
with my little wife.

"That doesn't matter at all," she cried triumphantly. "There's no law to
prevent our dressing Anna in just that style, if we like, is there,
Archie? You must admit that there isn't. I shall get her a pretty cap,
with yards of olive-green ribbon, to match the burlap on the
dining-room wall. Isn't it a charming idea? And colored people love a
bit of finery--a ribbon or so. I can imagine her delight. I hope she
isn't fearfully colored--an unbecoming shade--as green would be such a
bad match. We should be obliged to have red, and that would be so
glaring with the green walls. I can't help feeling a bit sorry--since we
have heard from Aunt Julia--that we didn't have red burlap in the
dining-room. But one can't think of everything, can one, Archie?"

"No, dear," I said soothingly. "You are a wonderful little woman to have
thought of all this."

"And I do hope," she went on, "that Anna has a black dress, buttoning
down the front. I have set my heart on it, Archie. It may be a trifle,
but somehow or other, those old-fashioned buttoned bodices look so
comfortable and homelike."

We journeyed exultantly back to New York, eager to get to our home. We
could scarcely wait. To be sure, the hotel at Niagara was delightful. We
had the "bridal suite" and all the luxuries that money could
command--for a honeymoon comes but once to people with our ideas. Still
this hotel life, even under such advantageous circumstances, palled upon
us. We did not care for sight-seeing, and the pastimes of the hayseed
mind. The fact that the Falls happened to be there, brought little
satisfaction to us. We stayed at the hotel most of the time, and tried
to imagine that it was home. Letitia read Ovid's _Ars Amatoria_ and _The
Responsive Epistles of Aulus Sabinus_. Aunt Julia had given us Hall
Caine's _Eternal City_, and Marie Corelli's _Temporal Power_, but
Letitia threw them from the window of the train. They took up so much
valuable room. They were mute testimony to a disorderly mind, she said,
and I quite agreed with her.

On our way back Letitia announced that she had sent a telepathic message
to Anna Carter. She sat quite motionless for ten minutes, during which
time she tried to impress Miss Carter's mind with a picture of
ourselves.

"Sometimes it works," she said, "and sometimes it doesn't. It all
depends upon the psychic endowment of the recipient. Some of the negroes
have an exceptional psychic equipment. At any rate, Archie, it doesn't
cost anything but the mental effort. Telepathy is cheaper than
telegraphy. Anna will probably know that we are coming."

"I think a wire would have been surer, dear," I ventured. "I really
don't mind the expense. I don't want my little girl to be too
laboriously economical."

At the Grand Central Station we parted for the first time since our
wedding--I, to set forth for my office in West Twenty-third Street,
where I was junior partner of a profitable little publishing house,
which would ultimately offer my _Lives of Great Men_ to the world;
Letitia to go home. How sweet the word sounded! In reality, I could have
postponed my visit to the office until the next day. But I was anxious
to savor the delight of "going home" to Letitia at the conventional
hour. I wanted to see what it was like--this return to a sweet,
expectant little wife, eagerly looking for me out of the window, while
the "neat-handed Phyllis" prepared a cozy dinner. Letitia quite
understood why I went to the office, and she was delighted at the pretty
subterfuge.

It was almost impossible to sink my mind to the dull level of business.
They must have found me singularly unresponsive at the office. The
details of the publishing business seemed unusually sordid, and I am
afraid I spent most of the time looking at my watch, and waiting for the
moment when I could legitimately rejoin Letitia. My partner, Arthur
Tamworth, evidently regarded me as a joke, and uttered various
pleasantries of the usual caliber. However, I asked him up to dinner one
night during the week, and he accepted the invitation with gusto.

At five o'clock I left the office, and half an hour later I arrived at
my dainty little uptown apartment. Sure enough, Letitia was looking out
of the window on the third floor and waving a handkerchief. Regardless
of appearances, I kissed my hand, overjoyed at the sight of domesticity
realized. Briskly I reached the elevator, and almost knocked down a most
remarkable looking lady who was stepping out. I begged her pardon
abjectly. She wore one of those peculiar veils, with an eruption of
large, angry, violet spots, through which I could see that she was
colored. Her dress was of mauve silk, and her hat was a veritable
flower-garden of roses, violets, and lilies of the valley. She chuckled
coonily at my apology and pursued her way.

"Who on earth is that?" I asked the elevator boy.

That official seemed tired. He answered indifferently: "Somebody's cook,
I suppose."

I couldn't help laughing. "Somebody's cook!" I repeated. "Who in the
world would own a cook like that?" It was an amusing idea, and I quite
enjoyed it.

Letitia opened the door herself, which was charming and unconventional.
She wore an exquisite little dinner dress of pink taffeta (I believe)
trimmed with white chiffon (I imagine). Her neck and arms gleamed in
enchanting evening revelation. We had both resolved always to "dress"
for dinner. Probably Aunt Julia would accuse us of our favorite pastime
of "aping," but we had not discussed the matter with her. "Dressing for
dinner" was merely a little delicate formality that cost nothing at all.
We looked upon it as a mutual courtesy--one of those small refinements
that mean so much to the well-bred mind. Even when we were entirely
alone, evening dress was to be _de rigueur_, as they say in plebeian
circles.

"Oh, Archie!" cried Letitia, "I'm so glad you've come, dear. It must
have been at least a week since we parted. Isn't the 'home' lovely? Oh,
I can scarcely believe it is mine. Now, run away and dress, like a good
boy, and then we'll talk."

I struggled into my evening clothes. My new dinner coat was a
particularly fetching garment, and I flattered myself, as I emerged from
my room--it seemed smaller than ever--that there was something
distinctly patrician about me.

Letitia was in the drawing-room with Ovid. A lamp with a red shade cast
a rosy light upon her. Anything prettier than this picture I have never
seen. I went in rather coyly, and fell over the tiger-head, at which
Letitia laughed merrily--still the same, bright, unchanged little girl.
When I had picked myself up, I looked out a channel between chairs,
stools, sofas and what-nots, and plowed myself through it gingerly,
until I reached Letitia.

"Now, dear girl," I said, "tell me everything. Begin with Anna Carter."

She took my hand as I sat beside her on the sofa. "Well," she started,
"Anna was quite surprised to see me. She had not received my telepathic
message. You remember I sent it at 11:32 this morning. But it appears
that she was singing at that time. Isn't it fun, Archie? When I arrived,
I found Anna at the piano practising her scales."

"How extremely--er--disrespectful!"

"Nonsense," laughed Letitia, "it seems that she belongs to a choral
society and is first soprano. You know, Archie, I thought it best to be
sympathetic at first. So I listened to her. I imagined that she was
going to apologize for being discovered at the piano. But she didn't.
She merely explained. The choral work will render it necessary for her
to go out every night--"

"But, my dear--"

"Don't interrupt, Archie. After dinner, you know, we really don't need
anybody. The old rigid idea of mewing a girl up in her room all evening
is a bit out of date--don't you think so, dear, in these enlightened
days? And isn't it much better to know that a cook is a woman above the
usual old-time, sordid, servant brand? Her voice is really beautiful.
She told me that they are rehearsing the _Messiah_ for Christmas Eve. I
was quite impressed with her."

"What does she look like?" I was a bit sullen, as so much oddity
perplexed me.

"Well," Letitia replied, "she didn't expect us, as my telepathic message
miscarried. It was a pity, after all, dear, that I didn't take your
advice and send a wire. Anna did not wear a black dress buttoned down
the front. Probably she will appear in that to-morrow. I found her in
mauve silk--really magnificently made, and her hair was done pompadour.
She looked just like one of Williams and Walker's girls in _In
Dahomey_."

"Mauve silk!" I cried in surprise, "why Letitia, just as I was entering
the elevator to come up here, I fell against a most remarkable looking
coon in mauve, with a veil, and a hat like the Trianon gardens at
Versailles."

"It was Anna!" cried Letitia merrily. "She had to go out very early
to-night, as the rehearsal was called for seven o'clock. You needn't
look so vexed, Archie. This is surely our festival time, and why
shouldn't Anna be in it? Time enough for discipline later. You silly
boy, to frown and pout in that way--"

Letitia kissed me, and I felt quite ashamed of my momentary ill-temper.
I must have inherited an ugly propensity for slave-driving. Here I was,
forgetting that this was our first night at home, because, forsooth, our
cook had gone out in mauve silk to sing!

"What about dinner?" I asked, and I succeeded in smiling.

"It's all right, you ravenous person," she replied. "To-night, Anna has
provided us what she calls a delicatessen dinner. I don't know what it
is--but I left it all to her. She suggested it, and was astonished when
I didn't know what it meant. She told me that it is very popular in New
York, and that she can always get us one, even if she should have to go
out earlier. I dare say it's lovely, Archie. She has laid it out in the
dining-room, and I haven't looked at it, because I thought it would be
jollier for us to make our acquaintance with the delicatessen dinner
together. Anna isn't a bit servile, or humble, and I rather like that. I
hate to see these women cowed. Not for a moment did Anna seem cowed."

My good spirits returned. After all, it was exceedingly delightful to
listen to my loquacious little wife, as she sat there in her pretty
evening clothes. The idea of the delicatessen dinner--whatever it might
be--alone with Letitia, in our newly-acquired home, was simply
captivating.

We went into the dining-room, arm-in-arm, and I almost wished that there
was somebody there to snapshot us. My wife, with her blonde hair
beautifully arranged, and her soft, pink silk draperies, with the white
swirls of chiffon, was a vision of loveliness; and beside her, in my
immaculate white waistcoat and admirable _piqué_ shirt, I afforded a
sympathetic contrast.

The dining-room, with its green burlap and handsome furniture, was
absolutely correct, and in the glow of the electric lights looked like
fairy-land. The effect was somewhat marred by the appearance of the
festive board. It was scarcely festive.

"Isn't it odd?" cried Letitia.

And it was. On a quaint little thin wooden plate, was a mound of very
cold looking potato salad. On another of these peculiar little dishes,
were half a dozen slices of red sausage with white lumps in it. On a
third wooden dish reposed two enormous pickles, very knobby and green. A
loaf of bread lurked at one end of the table. Two plates and a knife
and fork apiece completed the service, with a pitcher of water and two
glasses.

"Where is our pretty dinner set, I wonder?" asked Letitia; "I don't
remember these funny little wooden dishes. And--what's in that paper
parcel?"

The paper parcel, by the loaf of bread, had escaped our notice. Letitia
opened it, and revealed an immense piece of Gruyère cheese, very hole-y,
and appetizing looking, and moist, but appearing to lack a cheese dish,
and the necessary table equipment.

"What a strange way of laying a table!" I remarked rather gloomily,
feeling decidedly small in my satin-lined dinner-coat, and _piqué_
shirt-front.

"It is rather like camping out," said Letitia, in a perplexed voice,
"but perhaps this is merely the _hors-d'oeuvres_ course. Anna said
something about an ice-box. Let's investigate, dear. It really is fun,
though, isn't it?"

Letitia led the way to the kitchen, her pink silk dress rustling
musically. A few moments before, I had wished for somebody to snapshot
us. But as we stood, peering into the ice-box, in our rigid evening
dress, I felt rather relieved that we were alone. I should have hated
Aunt Julia to have been there. In the ice-box there was nothing but ice
and one bottle of ale, part of which had been consumed. The ice-box
seemed awfully cold and we shivered, though we naturally shouldn't have
expected an ice-box to be warm. Returning to the dining-room, rather
meditative, and serious, and amazed, we sat down to table. There seemed
to be such a quantity of table. It was almost appalling.

"You must buy a plant, Archie," said Letitia. "Aunt Julia always has a
fern, or something, in the middle of the table. It looks so dressy."

I refrained from saying that Aunt Julia also had other things on the
table. That would have been unnecessary. After all, this was a novelty,
and it is only hopelessly conservative minds that ruthlessly reject
innovation.

And in spite of all, our first delicatessen dinner passed off gaily
enough. In fact, the potato salad was delicious and we both agreed that
Anna Carter was certainly a good cook. We were hungry, and the slices of
sausage disappeared very quickly. We ate the pickles, not as a relish,
but desperately, as solid food. They were almost a course, by
themselves.

"I'm really glad, Archie," said Letitia, "that Anna is out. This is so
amusing, and for our first night at home, so appropriate. It would have
been embarrassing to have had Anna hovering around, passing things."

Although it occurred to me that Anna would have found very few things to
pass, I did not say so. My mind had righted itself, and I was enjoying
myself. The bread was fresh and appetizing. Never had I eaten so much
bread, and with the hunks of Gruyère cheese I felt almost like a
day-laborer. All I needed was a clasp-knife and a red handkerchief. I
mentioned this to Letitia, and we both laughed so heartily that we
forgot everything but our mirth.

"My dear old day-laborer in a Tuxedo coat!" said Letitia.

"And my dear old day-laborer's wife in low neck!" I added, catering to
her fantasy.

It really was very jolly. I don't believe that we could have been any
jollier had there been ten courses, winding up with a _parfait au café_
and a _demi-tasse_. Instead of these, we finished our dinner with the
remainder of the pickles and a nice glass of cool water. Letitia drank
my health and I drank hers. We clinked glasses in the continental
fashion. Then we waited, for we couldn't dispossess our minds of the
belief that there was something to follow. I wouldn't admit to Letitia
that I felt a trifle--er--incomplete; while Letitia certainly made no
such confession. Yet there was a something lacking--an indescribable
finishing touch. The delicatessen dinner undoubtedly lacked a finishing
touch. It was all beginning. The appearance of the table after dinner
was even more eccentric than we had found it at first sight. The empty
wooden dishes, the paper that had held the Gruyère, and the two mere
plates, had no suggestion of rollicking dissipation. Nor did they even
suggest an overweening domesticity.

Letitia, at last, rose from the table and I did the same. I advanced to
the door and opened it for her, and she passed into the drawing-room,
leaving me alone to enjoy a whiff or two of my cigarette. We determined
to keep up the etiquette of refined life in its every ramification. The
door of the bathroom stood wide open and rather spoiled the illusion.
But Letitia did not notice it. I saw her pass down the hall like a
queen, her head in the air, and her pink silk dress _froufrou_-ing
deliciously.

I threw myself back in an arm-chair, and sighed luxuriously. Then,
before joining Letitia, I donned my smoking-jacket, and felt exquisitely
at home. This was comfort, such as the maddened bachelor, in his
infuriated solitude, can scarcely imagine. The petty cares of life took
unto themselves wings and fled.

Letitia, in the drawing-room, awaited me anxiously. We were both
inclined to look upon the prescribed separation of the sexes after
dinner as a relic of barbarism. But it was a polite relic, and we had no
intention of shirking it. She looked up from her Ovid as I entered, and
then, rising, she threw her arms around me and kissed me.

It was eight o'clock, and we had a long evening before us. I had
promised myself a holiday from my _Lives of Great Men_ to-night. Letitia
had guaranteed entertainment, and this took the form of reading a
translation of Ovid, aloud. She would have preferred to entertain me in
the original, but excellent Latin scholar though I was, I clamored for a
translation. With one's wife, a man can be perfectly frank. Ovid, in the
original, was a trifle--heavy.

She read on, and on--and still on. "Banquets, too, with the tables
arranged, afford an introduction; there is something there besides wine
for you to look for. Full oft does blushing Cupid, with his delicate
arms, press the soothed horns of Bacchus there present. And when the
wine has besprinkled the soaking wings of Cupid, there he remains and
stands overpowered on the spot of his capture. He, indeed, quickly
flaps his moistened wings, but still it is fatal for the breast to be
sprinkled by love. Wine composes the feeling--"

The clock struck ten. I interrupted Letitia rather irrelevantly. "My
dear girl," I said, "I hate to be so prosaic, but I really feel horribly
empty."

She looked at me rather oddly, I thought. "You feel empty?" she queried;
"what an atrocious expression, Archie. If you mean by that, that you are
hungry--"

"I am, Letitia, ravenously hungry. In fact, I feel quite faint. I can't
think of Ovid, but only of supper. Oh, Letitia, a team of deviled
kidneys--"

"Don't," she cried, "don't. I can't bear it. Isn't it disgraceful,
Archie? I, too, am simply starving. It must be that bracing atmosphere
of Niagara. It has made plow-boys of us. Never before have I felt that
Ovid was a trifle--er--inadequate. Yet we have dined, Archie. We have
partaken of a delicatessen dinner. We ate everything--"

"I believe," I said feverishly, "that there was a little bread left. We
did not eat the entire loaf, Letitia. I am quite sure that there was a
heel--a crust--on the table. It caught my eye. Shall we--shall we go and
see?"

We went back to the dining-room, _not_ arm-in-arm. And truly enough, we
discovered that half a loaf was indeed better than no bread. I cut the
crust in two and nobly gave Letitia the larger piece--nobly, but I am
bound to say, enviously. Once more I felt relieved that there were no
camera fiends to intrude upon our privacy. Letitia, in her _décolleté_
pink silk gown, eating dry bread with a famished expression, seemed
unconventional. So did I, as I buried my teeth in the fresh, crisp
crust. There was no butter. Had there been butter,--well, we should
merely have eaten it. We drank some more of that nice cool water, that
bubbled as I poured it from the pitcher with uplifted hand.

"And now, dear," I said, "as I am going to be hungry again in five
minutes--I feel it coming on--I think I'll go to bed, and forget it."

"We--we--can't go to bed yet," murmured Letitia, "we must wait for Anna.
She has no latch-key, and can't get in--"

"Can't get in?" I exclaimed--and I'm afraid I was testy--"surely she
intends to conform to the rules of all well-appointed establishments--"

"Now you are wrong, dear," said my wife nervously. "It is not her fault
that she has no latch-key. She asked for one. Yes, Archie, she even
demanded it. It was very considerate of her. It is quite impossible for
her ever to be back before midnight, and she hated the idea of keeping
us up. It was very nice of her, and you shouldn't misjudge people,
Archie. To-morrow, we will all have latch-keys. At present, we are
without them, so I couldn't lend her one."

"Then there is an hour and a half to wait--"

"Oh, Archie,"--Letitia's eyes filled with tears--"you are getting to be
a regular--husband! You talk of waiting an hour and a half--alone with
me--as though it were a hardship. Oh, I'm so sorry. I never could have
believed--"

A stinging sense of remorse overcame me. I could have bitten out my
tongue for those foolish words. I explained that it was not the hour and
a half of waiting with Letitia that annoyed me; I protested that it was
the principle of the thing; I insinuated that I was unstrung, and still
hungry; I--but I fancy that Letitia understood. She smiled again, and
declared that she was too sensitive--and also a bit hungry. So we went
back to the drawing-room, and once more immersed ourselves in the
intellectual contemplation of Venus, and Paris, and Cupid, and Diana,
and Bacchus, and Thalia,--with minds out-rushing to Anna Carter.

Shortly after midnight the electric bell pealed and Letitia flew to the
door.

"It's Anna!" she cried joyously, as though it could possibly be anybody
else.

Miss Carter glided in, enormous and imposing. She almost filled the
hall. Letitia and I were obliged to lean tightly against the wall in
order to let her pass. She surveyed Letitia's costume in bland
astonishment.

"Say!" she exclaimed, "don't you jes' look too cute for words! My! Ain't
it stylish?"

"To-morrow you must have a latch-key, Anna," said Letitia majestically.
"You can now retire."

The mauve silk dress made twice as much rustle as Letitia's. Its owner
passed to her room, humming in a very exhilarating manner. My wife and
I, a trifle awed, moved rather gloomily toward our own apartment.

"An egg apiece, and some cawfee in the morning, I suppose."

The words floated in to us. They came from Anna's room. Letitia looked
at me, and I looked at Letitia. Certainly our handmaiden was neither
abject nor cowed. Yet we were bound to uphold the spirit of
independence, the very backbone of our institutions.

"Anna!" called Letitia. I noticed a timid inflection in her voice but
as I said nothing myself, I was unable to notice anything similar in my
own.

"Never call to me," Letitia ventured to remark, as cook appeared with
her mauve silk bodice unbuttoned, revealing a pair of scarlet corsets,
"always come. I am not at all inaccessible," she added loftily. "Yes,
eggs and coffee will do for to-morrow. We shall breakfast at--"

"Nine," interrupted Anna.

Letitia pondered for a moment, and then nodded her head assentingly as
Anna departed. I felt relieved that she left when she did. She was
slowly disrobing, as she stood before us, and I anticipated a
catastrophe if she remained two minutes longer.

"Nine is awfully late, Letitia," I said, "I really ought to be at the
office at eight--"

"I don't want Anna to think you are a bricklayer, dear," asserted
Letitia. "One never hears of really nice people breakfasting at such an
ungodly hour. You see, she herself suggested nine. Evidently, Archie,
she has been in good families. Later on, I can always explain to her
that we desire an earlier meal. But just at first--"

"But, my dear girl," I said weakly, "you are really mistaken in your
notion that it is only the bricklayer world that rises in the early
morning. The best people do it. Why, Gladstone was at his desk every day
at six--"

"Oh, Gladstone!" she protested with a smile, dismissing the late right
honorable gentleman from her consideration, as though he were not a mere
mortal of flesh and blood, with everyday sensations; "you mustn't
mention Gladstone, dear. If you were Gladstone, you could afford to do
as you liked--to have your breakfast at midnight, and indulge in other
eccentricities."

This was a bit irritating. Naturally, I knew I was not quite in the same
class as the gentlemen who have made history, but one does not care to
be reminded of that fact by one's wife. Even in jest, such a remark
seemed unnecessary. But it was not a matter to argue. I took no further
heed of it, and turned to the more vital question of our cook.

"Don't you think that she is extremely familiar--"

"Well, dear, perhaps friendly," said Letitia. "I think I prefer it to
servility. These bashful, deferential women are probably sneaky and
deceitful. Still, of course, I shall not permit her to be as friendly as
she was to-night. One must have discipline."

Letitia was combing out her hair before the silver, beveled mirror. I
watched the comb as it strayed through the shining golden strands. I
was soothed by the sight, that appealed to my sense of the artistic.

"To-morrow, dear," I said, "I suppose you will give her the cap with the
olive-green ribbons trailing the ground, and inquire about the black
dress buttoned down the front?"

Letitia was silent. She tugged at a refractory bit of hair and not until
it had earned its right to pass through the comb, unmolested, did she
speak.

"I was thinking, Archie," she said reflectively, "that some girls attach
so much more importance to little matters of that sort, if a man--if a
man puts it to them. Aunt Julia has often told me that she would have
had a much easier time if there had been a man in the house. Perhaps,
Archie, you would like to--"

"Not at all, Letitia," I remarked with emphasis, "not for worlds, dear,
would I interfere in your household matters. It is good of you to
suggest it, Letitia, and to permit me the luxury of meddling. But no,
dear,"--in tones of noble self-sacrifice--"I shall refrain."

"Well, then, to-morrow," she said pensively, "I will attend to the
matter. No doubt Anna will be delighted. And, Archie, she has just the
sort of face that would look well beneath a cap."

"I didn't like her in the hat trimmed with Trianon gardens," I muttered
with strange persistence.

"Perhaps it was a bit elaborate," Letitia agreed. "But now, Archie, I'm
sleepy, and--let us drop Anna. Next week, perhaps, I shall buy her a
pretty little black bonnet, tied with strings, under the chin. I intend
to treat her nicely and generously and--"

"I know I shall emaciate during the night," I couldn't help declaring,
as I switched off the light, "I'm as hungry as a hunter, and--and--we
finished the bread!"




CHAPTER III


"Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner." If Byron, whose genius
few will deny, can make such a remark, there is no need for me to
apologize for dwelling upon a topic that long-haired dreamers, with bad
digestions, might call niggledy-piggledy. In fact, I have no intention
of so doing. It has long been my idea that dinner is not so much a mere
matter of material indulgence, as of artistic communion, to which food
is an accompaniment. The fact that the very best music, cruelly
harmonized, must distress--that Melba, Calvé, and Nordica warbling to a
discordant accompaniment, would produce nausea--can certainly need no
discussion. It is a fact that is self-evident. It has an Euclidian
Q.E.D-ness that is instantly apparent.

I told Letitia that I was not going to emulate the example of so many
men and treat myself each day to a choice luncheon in town. That has
always seemed to me to be a greedy process. Better--far better is it--to
return to one's home at night, hungry as a hunter, with an appetite for
healthful food, rather than an abnormal craving for _suprême de
volaille_. Don't you think so? I intended to save myself up for
Letitia--to accumulate hunger-pangs, and bring them to her table for
artistic treatment. My wife fully agreed with me, and although I brought
the due amount of hunger-pangs to our first dinner at home and
discovered, perhaps, that "delicatessen" food didn't treat them quite as
artistically as they deserved, I was not discouraged.

My appetite next evening was really in a wonderfully unimpaired
condition. I rejoiced to find that I was so healthy, and as I wended my
way homewards, I looked longingly at mere apples in the street, while
the peanut stands and the roast chestnut stoves almost suggested
assault.

On this occasion Letitia was not at the window, and I was disappointed.
Evidently she was busy and unable to look for my advent. Perhaps it was
selfish of me to expect her to dance attendance upon my comings and
goings, but a newly-made husband is inclined to be unduly exacting. Even
when I entered the apartment there was nobody to meet me, and it was not
until I reached the drawing-room that I found Letitia. She was sitting
there, looking at the fireplace that the steam-heat rendered so
unnecessary. If there had been glowing embers there she would have been
gazing into them. But there were none--merely gas-logs, unlighted. On
the floor by her side was a little white arrangement, around which were
coiled yards and yards of olive-green ribbon. Instantly I remembered
Anna's cap. I asked myself apprehensively why it was on the floor, and
not on Anna?

Letitia's face was flushed; her eyes were red; her pose was listless;
her manner strange. Something evil must have happened, and I sprang
forward with the cry: "Letitia!"

She started, and then came forward to kiss me. Her face felt feverish,
and for a moment my heart stood still and I was unable to ask for an
explanation.

Letitia herself, however, came to my rescue. "I've had such a horrible
time of it, Archie, that I almost telephoned for you to come back. Then,
I thought you would be frightened, so I simply telepathed.
And--and--that didn't work, so I determined to wait--"

The tears rushed to her eyes. I was frantic. I had never before seen
Letitia like this. She had been, hitherto, so impassive, so immovable,
so admirably self-controlled.

"What is it, dear?" I asked tenderly, thinking up dozens of possible
catastrophes.

"That!" she replied tremulously, pointing to the cap on the floor.
"Archie, I bought it this morning, trimmed it with seven yards of the
finest ribbon I could get, and then--when I offered it to Anna, I was
insulted--grossly insulted--although--although she told me that I--I,
Archie--had grossly insulted her. Oh, I shall never forget it."

"I don't understand, dear. Please explain--when you feel calmer."

"I'm calm, now," she asserted, with a telltale gulp. "First of all,
dear, when I gave her the cap and told her that I hoped she would always
wear it--as it matched the burlap in the dining-room so well--she burst
out laughing. Oh, how she laughed! She put her hands to her
sides--akimbo, I think they call it--and made such a noise that I was
afraid. Oh, that coon laughter! And, then, Archie, what do you think she
asked me? You would never guess. What she meant I can't quite figure
out, but she asked me if I thought--if I thought--"

"Tell me, Letitia."

"She asked me if I thought she was a blooming circus! A blooming circus,
Archie! She told me that if I hadn't a quarter to go and see a variety
show, she would lend me one. The humiliation of it! Then she said that
she wasn't going to do any 'vaudeville turn' here. Vaudeville turn, if
you please, Archie. She told me that I had airs and manners 'to
burn'--which I imagine must be slang. Nothing would induce her to put
on the cap. She said it was a merry-andrew affair, and though I
explained to her that in Paris such caps were quite the thing, it had no
effect on her. In fact, she almost told me that I lied, for she declared
that she had been in Paris herself and had never seen such degradation."

"Had she been in Paris, Letitia?" I asked, surprised.

"Yes, dear," replied Letitia, brushing back her disheveled hair, "in
Paris, Kentucky. She was born there. Poor girl! When I realized that she
was quite ignorant, I felt sorry for her. I said to her in a very gentle
voice: 'Anna, I wanted you to wear this cap, because I thought it would
look so well with the nice black alpaca dress that I am going to give
you.' On the spur of the moment, Archie, I had decided to present her
with a black alpaca dress--"

"And then--?"

"And then," continued Letitia, "she turned on me again. I could keep the
black alpaca dress, she said, until she was ready for the Old Ladies'
Home. That was the livery there, she informed me. No black dresses for
her. Red was the only thing worth living for, she said, and mauve came
next. She insisted that she wasn't working for black alpaca dresses. If
she so far forgot her dignity as to go out to domestic service, it was
because she needed silk gowns, and flower hats--"

"She saw you were young and inexperienced," I said bitterly, "and she
was just imposing. I think I'll go and have a talk with her--"

"You can't," cried Letitia nervously, "she's out. Oh, I'm so glad she's
out, for I was really frightened, Archie, and can't forget her as she
stood there--just where you are--in an old weather-beaten black silk
skirt with half the beads on, and a bright red jersey with half the
buttons off."

"She must go!" I exclaimed imperiously. "She must go."

"No, Archie, no. The matter has been settled in an amicable way. Just as
she was leaving me she burst out crying, and I felt most horribly
guilty. I have no idea why I felt guilty for I had merely intended to be
kind, though firm, as Aunt Julia said. Still, I felt guilty. Half an
hour after she came back, quite lively, and dressed to go out, in the
mauve silk, with the flower hat. She told me not to be angry, and not to
worry--that sometimes when she was unstrung, she was taken that way;
that she hadn't really meant anything, as she knew I was only joking
about the cap and the black dress. I felt so relieved, Archie, it was a
weight off my mind."

"And dinner?" I carefully tried to suppress a few pangs that were
rioting.

"She was so upset, dear, that I really believed that she would go
without even thinking of dinner. But I wronged her, for she didn't. She
is not really a bad girl--merely odd, some one to study psychologically.
In spite of her hysterical condition she has prepared dinner--another
delicatessen dinner. I hope you won't mind, dear."

I sank wearily into an arm-chair. "I had an apple for luncheon,
Letitia," I said with a yearning for sympathy; "one apple, and nothing
more. What did you have?"

"Anna boiled me an egg," she replied; "it was really beautifully cooked,
and I had some bread, and butter, and coffee. I wanted tea, Archie, but
Anna had forgotten to get any in the house, as she prefers coffee. Isn't
it funny, Archie? She says she simply can't drink tea--it nauseates
her--and that she is quite famous for her coffee--"

"Letitia," I interrupted, "I don't think I could undergo another
delicatessen dinner. The potato salad was certainly very nice, so were
the pickles--as appetizers. But," with a weak attempt at humor, "I
really couldn't give them an encore. Let's go out to dinner. Let's put
on our things, and go down to the Martin--"

Letitia clapped her hands. "How gorgeous!" she cried ecstatically, "what
a lovely idea!"

"It seems silly," I said, "to abandon our home as soon as we get into
it, doesn't it, Letitia? Here we are dining out before we've dined in--"

"But, Archie," suggested Letitia triumphantly, "Aunt Julia says that
nearly all New Yorkers dine at restaurants, when it is cook's night
out--"

"In our case, dear,"--with a little sarcastic inflection--"every night
appears to be cook's night out. So we really ought to subscribe to a
restaurant--"

"That is unjust, Archie. We have been at home two nights only. Last
night we really did enjoy the novelty of the delicatessen dinner, and
to-night there is another waiting for us. If it hadn't been for the cap
with the ribbons--which was an accident--this second delicatessen dinner
wouldn't have occurred. And I'm sure--"

"Well, to-morrow night we dine at home, Letitia," I remarked rather
haughtily, "for I have invited Arthur Tamworth, who is quite an epicure.
When we get back from the restaurant we will arrange a little menu, and
Anna can then give us a taste of her quality."

"And I dare say that she will," said Letitia, bestowing a kiss upon me.
"Probably she is an exceedingly good cook. We are paying her heavy
wages, Archie--the wages of a very good cook, Aunt Julia says. I don't
fancy that Anna is the woman to sail under false colors--"

"Unless mauve be a false color," I interposed wittily, and then we both
laughed and good temper was restored. Like a couple of children, we went
gaily off to the restaurant, with ne'er a thought of the cold sausage
and the buff salad that graced our own mahogany.

It was a very long and well-furnished dinner, but it was not too long
for us. We were famished. At various times I have seen Letitia "toy"
with her food. I have often told her that she merely coquetted with her
meals. But now she labored strenuously, and this dinner was a serious
affair. We were both too busy even to talk. The waiters looked at us in
amazement, as they removed dish after dish, with naught to tell the tale
of its quality. It was even alarming. It was not until we had arrived at
the coffee that we paused in our mad career. Letitia glanced at me a
trifle shamefacedly, I thought; I returned the glance, perhaps a bit
abashed. Possibly she was vexed that she had shattered the
rose-leaf-and-dewdrop theory, for she had certainly done so. I had never
seen her in the desperation of hunger, simply battling for food.

"We _were_ hungry," said Letitia, with a little sigh of greedy
satisfaction, as I lighted a cigarette. And I was glad that she included
me. It put her at ease and, as a matter of fact, I had been just as
ardent. It was unusual--but it seemed better for her to be plural in her
remarks.

"If Anna saw us," I was puffing contentedly at my cigarette, "I don't
think she would suggest another delicatessen dinner. Oh, those
pickles--that sausage--the ecru potato muddle! Really, Letitia--"

"I suppose that when one is positively hungry," Letitia murmured, "such
food is trying. Few cooks, however, anticipate appetites like ours,
dear."

Once again I was included. It was quite natural that Letitia should
arraign me with herself. But the idea dawned upon me that though I had
done my duty to this dinner just as nobly as had my wife--her appetite,
for a fragile girl, was really more extraordinary than was mine for a
full-fledged man.

As soon as we were home again, Letitia suggested that we start at once
to arrange the little menu for the dinner at which Arthur Tamworth was
to be present on the following evening. We sat in the drawing-room,
although we should have preferred the cozier dining-room. In that
apartment, however, the delicatessen dinner was still laid. We took one
look at it and then fled. In our state of repletion it seemed too
insolent to endure. Anna was not there to remove it, and Letitia's
education was such that the sordid details of clearing a table were a
bit beyond her.

"I wish," she said, "that we had arranged this menu before dinner. It is
hard to think up things, after one has dined so well."

"Yes, dear," I assented, "soup just now is so unattractive and--er--meat
palls."

"But to-morrow we shan't feel like that," she declared triumphantly,
"and one must look ahead, Archie. You just smoke quietly, dear, and I'll
write out the menu. Then we'll talk it over. I shall make it out in
French, dear. The simplest things sound almost epicurean in French. I
shall buy three very pretty menu cards to-morrow--with little artistic
drawings on them, one for each of us. And I dare say that Mr. Tamworth
will like to take his home with him."

"But Anna won't understand French."

"I've thought of that," said Letitia, biting her pencil. "I shall make
the list out in English for Anna, so that she can buy the things and
serve them properly. Of course, she may know French--she certainly does
if she has lived in good families--but I won't rely on it. Every cook
really should be proficient in the gastronomic phrases that are so
popular to-day."

"Strange, isn't it, Letitia, that English and American menus should
always affect French?"

"No, dear," replied my wife, "not at all. We copy the Latin countries in
all the arts. Why not in that of dining? Dining _is_ an art, and not--as
we regard it in England and America--a mere vulgar physiological
process."

For ten minutes Letitia thought and wrote--and wrote and thought. She
looked up at the ceiling for inspiration; she glanced at me, unseeingly,
and when I made a face at her, never noticed it. She sat there, working,
while I idly admired her and thought what an admirable little housewife
she was. For such a blue-stocking, Letitia was doing wonders, it seemed
to me.

At the end of the ten minutes she had finished and, bringing her work to
my chair, she sat on the tiger-head at my knee and announced with much
satisfaction that her efforts had been successful.

"Listen, Archie," she began, with her paper comfortably settled on her
lap. "First of all, let me say that I have made out a very simple
dinner. I hate ostentation and glare. My idea is to be dainty and
unpretentious. We don't want Mr. Tamworth to think that we are living
beyond our means, but we do want him to realize the fact that we know
how to be refined and inexpensive at the same time."

"Certainly. You are quite right, Letitia. Go on."

"As _hors d'oeuvres_," she continued, "we will have olives and _anchois
à l'huile_. That is quite enough for a little home dinner. You write it
all in English for Anna as I read it to you. Here, take this piece of
paper and pencil, dear."

I wrote: "Olives. Anchovies at the oil."

"For soup," she went on, "I shall have things that sound really much
better than they are, as I don't want to confuse Anna. Just two soups,
Archie, _consommé julienne_, and _crème d'asperges_. I did think of
_petite marmite_, but there is just a chance that Anna might fail at it,
as even in Paris none but the finest _chefs_ really succeed with _petite
marmite_. So just put down _consommé julienne_, and _crème d'asperges_."

"Beef soup with vegetables. Cream of asparagus," I wrote. "Don't you
think, Letitia, that one soup would have been enough--one thoroughly
artistic and satisfactory soup?"

"No, Archie," she responded with some asperity. "I hate pinning people
down to one thing--taking a tailor-like measure of their tastes, as it
were. Doesn't it all sound horrid in English?" she queried with a laugh.
"One might really fancy a little _consommé julienne_, whereas beef soup
with vegetables sounds absolutely tin-can-ny, and red-handkerchief-y."

I thought of Letitia at the restaurant, just one hour previously, and
realized what absolute hunger can do for a lissome little lady.

"Just one _entrée_, Archie,"' said she, "merely _homard naturel_.
Everybody likes it, and I prefer to class it as an _entrée_. I did think
of having it _à la Newburg_, but it is a bit too heavy, don't you think,
dear? I don't want our dinner to be a foody affair--"

"Like that we have just finished," I interposed thoughtfully.

"No," she agreed rather reluctantly. "We were both disgracefully hungry,
and--and--you needn't keep discussing that meal, for it was a meal, and
_not_ a dinner. Now, write down, please, as _entrée_, _homard naturel_."

"Natural lobster," emerged from my pencil tip.

"After that, a solid dish," Letitia declared. "You see, Archie, Mr.
Tamworth is American, and we don't want to worry him with quail, or
squab or little unsatisfactory game. I've thought it carefully over and
it seems to me that a tiny, dainty _bifsteck aux pommes de terre_ will
be energetic without being squalid. What say you, boy? Don't you agree
with me?"

"Beefsteak with potatoes," I wrote glibly, but even as my pencil framed
the words, I shuddered. After our recent heavy dinner the thought of it
seemed so arduous.

Letitia understood. "You see, it's all due to the coarseness of the
English language," she insisted, "and you must remember that you are
Englishing it for Anna only. I wonder," she added pensively, "if Anna
would make us some of those _soufflé_ potatoes--you know, Archie, those
things that are all blown out, and that seem like eating fried air. They
are most delicate. We used to have them every Sunday at the _pension_,
in the Avenue du Roule. However, I won't tax the girl. Perhaps she may
give us the potatoes in that style without being told. I fancy, dear,
that she is going to surprise us. I dare say it will be a relief to her
to see that we really know what good living is. I shall leave the
potatoes to her."

"We may as well give her a chance," I agreed. "Personally, I would just
as soon have the potatoes _maître d'hôtel_. It is very likely that Anna
will prefer that method, as it is more usual."

"And after that," Letitia cried gaily, "nothing, but _glaces aux
fraises_--"

"Strawberry ices," I wrote.

"And a _demi-tasse_."

"Coffee. It is very convenient in New York, dear," I said, "Anna will
not have the worry of making the ices. All she will have to do will be
to order a quart and they will send it over in a cardboard box."

Letitia shivered. "Yes, I know, Archie. It is very coarse, isn't it?
Imagine thinking of ices by the quart! Picture them in a cardboard box!"

"They speak of it in the singular here, dear. It is ice-cream. You talk
of a quart of _it_; not of a quart of _them_. It doesn't really matter,
though. The taste is the same."

"Ugh!" Letitia exclaimed, "it is very discouraging. Why people call
delicious foods by such ugly titles, I don't know. 'A quart of
ice-cream' has such a greedy sound, whereas 'a strawberry ice' is pretty
and artistic to the ear. But as you say, dear, it really makes no
difference. But what do you think of the dinner, dear? Does it appeal to
you? After all, Archie, I would sooner it pleased you than Mr. Tamworth,
though he _is_ the guest."

"It is lovely," I said enthusiastically, "and, Letitia, so are you. And
you would sooner please me than Arthur Tamworth, oh, most charming of
wives? Well, you will do that, my dear. Yet I bet that our little dinner
will be a red-letter affair for Arthur."

"I shall get the menus at Brentano's to-morrow," announced Letitia,
"some pretty little water-color, or etching, if possible. I don't intend
to economize, Archie. Our first dinner-party--for three is a crowd,
isn't it?--must, and shall be delightful."




CHAPTER IV


Before going to the office next morning, I accompanied Letitia to the
florist's. She was determined to select the table decorations herself.
Later on, she declared, when Anna had become acclimatized and our way of
living was to her as an open book, Letitia promised to leave everything
to her. We were rather surprised at the cost of the flowers Letitia
coveted. Orchids and American Beauty roses appealed to her strongly, and
she paid no attention to less expensive blooms. Not that I minded. This
little dinner really meant a good deal to me. Besides being a personal
friend of mine, Arthur Tamworth was my senior partner, and it was upon
him that I relied for the publication of my _Lives of Great Men_, a work
that was to make my name ring through the land and perhaps, through the
ages. In fact, I delighted to do him honor, and if my motives were
somewhat selfish, they were not less so than those of the majority. This
is a practical age.

Letitia went home, flower-laden and smiling. She was neither when I
returned at five o'clock. In fact, she seemed distinctly weary and her
kiss was more perfunctory than any I had hitherto experienced at her
lips.

"Anna is so surly, Archie," she said droopingly, "that I simply can't
cope with her. She is furious at the idea of being late at her class.
This was to be her great night, she says, as she was to sing _With
Verdure Clad_, and she seems indignant. I was kind though firm. I
insinuated--though I didn't say so--that her verdure would keep, and
that my dinner must be served properly."

"Quite right, dear."

"I felt it was a sort of crisis," Letitia continued, "a kind of tide in
the affairs of the household. Then her sister came, and I suggested that
if Anna liked, the girl could remain and wait at table."

"But does she know how?" I asked.

"What is there to know?" queried Letitia, with a tinge of annoyance.
"Anybody can wait at table. It is very simple. Anna seemed pleased, or,
rather, not displeased. But she is very sulky and I have arranged the
flowers on the table myself. I've never worked so hard in my life and I
feel quite tired out. But I realize, dear, that one must do something
useful--at least at the beginning of housekeeping. I have also placed
the _hors d'oeuvres_ on the table. It all looks very charming."

"Poor Letitia!" I exclaimed, stroking her hair, "I hate the idea of your
laboring. You mustn't do it again. I have no doubt but that Anna could
have done it all, but as she was so cross you were right to heap coals
of fire on her head. She is probably remorseful enough by this time."

"No," Letitia remarked thoughtfully, "I don't believe that Anna has a
remorseful nature. The colored disposition--I mean by that the
disposition of the colored people--is peculiar, Archie. When we have
quite settled down, I shall study Anna, psychologically."

"In the meantime, dear," I said, airily jocular, "let us hope that the
_crème d'asperges_ won't be too psychological."

Letitia looked a picture in blue _crêpe de chine_, with her beautiful
neck and shoulders emerging from one of those spidery lace effects that
render the masculine pen impotent. Her _trousseau_ contained so many
evening dresses that one might have imagined that our entire life was to
be spent at night, and that morning counted for absolutely nothing. Some
of the orchids, remaining from the table decorations, Letitia wore at
her bosom, and one exquisite American Beauty rose nestled in the golden
glories of her hair.

"You see how economical I am, Archie," she said, "for instead of
throwing away the superfluous flowers, I wear them. Aunt Julia says that
the essence of good housekeeping consists in utilizing everything."

We sat in the drawing-room to await Arthur Tamworth, and although we
both made an admirable feint of ease and nonchalance, it was so
obviously a feint that we gave it up, and simply killed time. Of course,
we were both accustomed to dinners and receptions--in fact, we had been
nourished on them. But other people's affairs are--other people's
affairs. This was ours, and our first, and there is no use concealing
the fact that we were both nervous. Letitia read Ovid, upside down, and
seemed to derive intellectual entertainment from it, judging by her
face. I merely looked out of the window, not to watch for Tamworth's
advent, but because the window seemed to be such a fitting place to look
out of.

When the bell finally rang, Letitia had the decency to adjust Ovid, and
I stood by the fireplace in an unstudied, host-like way, with my hands
behind me, although there had never been any warmth in that fireplace
and never would be--as long as we had steam-heat for nothing.

As we waited, a colored head and nothing more popped in at the door,
and the younger Miss Carter--for it must have been she--remarked:
"There's a man outside who wants to come in."

"Never let any one in," I said sternly, for there had been an epidemic
of burglars, while suspicious characters simply prowled, seeking whom
they might devour. "Always keep the chain on the door."

"He says he's come to dinner," remarked the colored head, with a
chuckle.

Letitia jumped up as though shot. I felt myself redden. Under the
caption of "man" we had not recognized Arthur Tamworth. Of course, he
was a man in the best sense of the word, but the best sense of the word
is not polite society's. I rushed to the door in a fever, and unchained
it noisily. Arthur Tamworth stood outside looking just a trifle
annoyed--but not more annoyed than I was.

"Come in, old chap," I said, with elaborate cordiality, "we were waiting
for you. The maid who opened the door was not our maid, you know--merely
her sister--and--er--"

"That's all right, Fairfax," Arthur Tamworth declared, as he shook my
hand, "I didn't know what I had struck. Having, however, lived in New
York all my life, I know something about the ladies who help. Hope I'm
not late?"

I insisted that this was Liberty Hall--a remark that is always supposed
to put all at their ease. Then I escorted him to the drawing-room where
Letitia stood, peerless in her blue diaphanous gown. Mr. Tamworth was so
engrossed with Letitia's appearance that he did not notice the
tiger-head, and tripping over it, fell at her feet. I assisted him to
rise and introduced him to my wife. His fall, however, had irritated him
a bit. He was much older than we were, being a somewhat portly person of
fifty summers, with iron-gray hair and a florid complexion.

"I'm so sorry," said Letitia graciously, "Archie and I always fall over
that tiger-head, and have really grown to like it. But it is a stupid
thing--very much in the way."

"I always think, Mrs. Fairfax," Mr. Tamworth remarked, rubbing his shin,
"that tiger-heads are meant to trip people up. And the worst of them is
that they are always so hard. They must be stuffed with rocks."

Letitia's delightful manner, however, soon restored his equanimity. She
talked to him so gracefully, so appealingly, so irresistibly, that
Arthur Tamworth was under the spell of her presence long before we went
in to dinner. I felt proud of her as she held--in the palm of her hand,
as it were--this worldly, rotund person. The fate of my _Lives of Great
Men_ seemed to be settled. Mr. Tamworth did not wear evening dress, but
affected that horrible garb known as a "business suit," with a rude,
short coat. This annoyed me, as I was afraid that Letitia would think my
friend lacking in respect. In fact, she looked extremely surprised when,
just before we moved toward the dining-room, he said: "Had I known we
were going to the opera to-night, Mrs. Fairfax, I should have dressed.
But Archie did not tell me."

"We are not going to the opera, Mr. Tamworth," Letitia responded, her
eyes betraying her astonishment. "Why should you think so?" Then, with a
charming determination to make him feel comfortable, she added: "Archie
and I dress for each other. I like him better than any audience at the
Metropolitan, and he has the same sort of regard for me."

Wasn't it pretty? Mr. Tamworth remarked, "You're a lucky dog, Fairfax,"
and then Letitia took his arm, and we set forth for the dining-room,
cheerful and expectant. I noticed that Tamworth took particular heed of
the tiger-head this time. The dignity of our march was also impaired by
the fact that the bathroom door stood wide open, and if it had not been
for Letitia's presence of mind, we should all have marched in.

Nothing could have looked more fairy-like than the dining-room, except,
perhaps, fairy-land itself. Mr. Tamworth's face expanded in a pleasant
smile at the mere anticipation of the dinner that awaited him. The
orchids, framed in maiden-hair fern, were exquisite, and the roses in
long vases of opalescent glass were fragrant as well as beautiful. At
each place was a dainty menu-card, bearing misty little water-color
pictures. Mr. Tamworth's was called "Children at Play," which did not
seem appropriate, but was nevertheless neat and well-done.

The _hors d'oeuvres_ passed off admirably. Letitia was lively, Mr.
Tamworth was wonderfully loquacious, and I sat and reveled in their
clever encounters of wit. Letitia and I scarcely touched the olives, and
the _anchois à l'huile_, but Mr. Tamworth seemed hungry, and partook of
them as though there were nothing to follow. Then Letitia touched a
little bell, and after what seemed an eternity the younger Miss Carter
appeared. I could not help gasping when I saw her. She wore a
coffee-colored dress with bright yellow ribbons, and nestling in her
woolly hair--in the style affected by Letitia--was a rose, most red and
artificial. On her face was a broad grin. I looked at Letitia, and saw
that she was flushed but endeavoring to overcome her vexation.
Tamworth's gaze appeared to be riveted upon the picture of "Children at
Play."

"Will you take _consommé julienne_, or _crème d'asperges_?" asked
Letitia, nervously fingering her dinner-card, and trying to smile in an
unconcerned way upon Mr. Tamworth.

Mr. Tamworth selected the _crème d'asperges_; so did Letitia and I. My
wife whispered to the Zulu in yellow: "Asparagus soup for everybody,"
rather anxiously, and then turning to our guest tried to think of
something to say. I say, tried to think, because, at that moment, voices
were heard in the kitchen, which was as near to us as the bathroom. In
fact, the voices seemed as though they were in the dining-room.

"They'll all take sparrowgrass soup," said the younger Miss Carter, with
a loud laugh.

"Oh, they will, will they?" retorted the elder Miss Carter. "You jes'
ask 'em how they're a-goin to do it. They'll take what I've made, or
they'll leave it. I don't know nothin' about no sparrowgrass. She's
crazy, askin' for two different soups. Here. You take in them three
bowls o' veg., and no back talk. I'm sick and tired of this kind o'
monkey business. You bet I am. And just you hurry, Sylvia; we're
a-missin' all of our choruses, and--"

By some horrid, demoniac freak of fate, we sat hatefully and
relentlessly silent. In vain I tried to think up some remark--be it ever
so banal--that would distract Tamworth's attention. I could see that
Letitia was in the same quandary. Not an idea lurked in my mind. Even
the weather failed. Each word from the kitchen reached us as though by
megaphone. Letitia's lip trembled, as she sat, apparently racking her
brain for something--anything--to say. It was too cruel.

"Take in the veg. soup, and if you drop it I'll skin you," sang out Miss
Carter.

Rescue came, but it was too late. "You really have a charming little
apartment, Mrs. Fairfax," said Arthur Tamworth diplomatically, "I don't
know when I've seen prettier appointments."

A dainty soup-plate was placed before each of us by the grinning maiden.
Sylvia, if you please--Sylvia! It was "beef soup and vegetables" with a
vengeance. It stood in a solid mass in each plate and there seemed to be
everything in it but soup. It approached the spoon with glutinous
reluctance and appeared to be begging to be cut with a knife and put
quickly out of its misery.

"Oh, I'm so sorry about the _crème d'asperges_," Letitia murmured, her
lips parched, and a fever spot on each cheek, "I suppose that she
didn't understand."

"This is delicious, Mrs. Fairfax," said Arthur Tamworth nobly, "there is
nothing I like better than good _consommé julienne_. I really prefer it
to the other."

We did not sip our soup, but we worked at it. It tasted like boiled
everything, served up with the water. There were nasty little flecks of
red and streaks of yellow in it. One expected anything, at each
spoonful. Not if I had been starving, could I have eaten it. Arthur
Tamworth plodded along laboriously, like a youth with his way to make in
the world, and Letitia, as hostess, evidently felt bound by the rules of
etiquette to do what she could. She had recovered her equanimity,
wonderful little girl!

"As we were saying before dinner," she remarked, trying not to look at
the odious Sylvia, as she clattered away the plates, "the modern novel
does seem to have deteriorated. If you consider all these irritating
romances, so vastly inferior to the splendid imaginings of Dumas, you
must admit the weakness, the effeminacy of such efforts to-day. It
assuredly does seem as though all virility had departed from the modern
band of so-called romance-weavers--"

Letitia's effort at "polite conversation" suddenly ceased. The _homard
naturel_ arrived and we could scarcely believe our eyes. Instead of the
splendid crustacean that we had anticipated--the glowing macrurous
delicacy that we had expected to see crouching in a juggle of
water-cress--a hideous can, with a picture of a lobster on it, was
placed before me. The can had been opened, and there, in poisonous
looking obsequiousness, lurked our _homard naturel_.

"This is absurd," I said, and my voice shook. Tamworth was an old
friend, but sometimes old friends respond to insult, apparently
deliberate.

"I--I--can't understand," Letitia managed to say. "What--what is it?"

"Simply a can of lobster," replied Arthur Tamworth, with a pleasant
smile; "and very good it is, too, no doubt. Suppose you assist us,
Fairfax, and cease looking as though you had lost all your available
relatives, and your wife's as well."

To say that I felt mortified was to put the matter mildly. The fact that
Tamworth was generously trying to make the best of things irritated me
the more. After all, at a little dinner, one does not want charity, even
though it be supposed to "begin at home." I was too overcome to eat,
though I saw Letitia frowning at me and noticed that she was partaking
liberally. I was so angry that I could have torn up my dinner-card. The
"Children at Play" on Tamworth's did not seem so awfully inappropriate,
after all. "Children Playing at Dinner" would have been more to the
point, though.

"What are your views on the servant question, Mrs. Fairfax?" asked
Arthur Tamworth lightly, as he toyed with a piece of what looked like
brick-red india-rubber. "Do you know"--with a smile--"that I am studying
it? Positively I am."

A look of freezing severity appeared on Letitia's face. In a voice
shiveringly Arctic, she asked: "What _is_ the servant question, Mr.
Tamworth? I have never heard of it. If you imagine--"

"Not at all, Mrs. Fairfax, not at all"--he made the rejoinder
quickly--"I do not imagine that you will let it upset you. But,
honestly, it is one of the topics of the day."

"With silly women, lacking in intellectuality," interposed my wife, with
the sublimest inflection of contempt that I have ever heard. "Brainless
women must talk about something. They have no interest in the life
beautiful and artistic. Rather than adopt a policy of silence which
would effectually cover their mental shortcomings, they discuss the
kitchen and food. At least, I am told that they do. Personally, I do
not know. I do not associate with them."

Letitia was very busy with the cold mummy, masquerading before her as
_homard naturel_. She did not see the look of amusement on Arthur
Tamworth's face. I saw it, however, and it was gall and wormwood to me.
I hated to believe that he regarded Letitia as a joke. I had no sympathy
with jokes, except when I uttered them myself, as the spontaneous
bubbles of an exuberant spirit.

"Seriously, Mrs. Fairfax," continued my guest, laying aside his fork
with a sigh of relief that seemed to say, "well done, thou good and
faithful servant"; "it is not only the brainless ladies who talk
servant. Why, some of the best people are contemplating a Women's
Domestic Guild. There is, for instance, Mrs. Russell Sage--"

"Ha! Ha!" laughed Letitia. "Is she the best example you can find, Mr.
Tamworth? I have no doubt but that Mrs. Sage, at a pinch, could cook her
own dinner. Stew, probably, followed by baked apples. Really, Mr.
Tamworth--"

"I read an interview with a Mrs. Joseph Healey, the other day," said Mr.
Tamworth placidly; "I cut it out. I think I have it with me. Ah,
yes"--rescuing a newspaper clipping from his pocket--"hark at this:
'Owing to the incompetency of servant girls, housekeepers, too, are
compelled, more and more, to buy cooked food for their tables. The
growth of the delicatessen business in recent years has been
startling--'"

Letitia sat bolt upright, suddenly. The paragraph seemed to sear itself
into my brain.

"'Many families,'" he went on, "'live almost continuously on ham and
potato salad, which is usually kept in an ice-box two or three days
until it is absolutely unfit to be eaten. The servant-girl question is,
therefore, not only breaking up the American home, but serving to break
down the national health.'"

I tried to pretend that I was not looking at Letitia. Letitia tried to
pretend that she was not looking at me. The dual attempt was a failure.
We each knew that we were contemplating the other.

"Perhaps it is true," said Letitia airily, "perhaps. At any rate, it
reads well in the newspapers, Mr. Tamworth. Sylvia"--to the Zulu--"you
can bring in the next course. It is _bifsteck aux pommes de terre_."

When it arrived we would have given worlds to have been able to resume
our discussion. It was then that we really needed to talk--and it was
then that we couldn't! We could simply sit and gaze at the travesty.
Conversation, which should be so serviceable as a stop-gap, failed us
completely. All we could see was a sort of coal-black chest-protector on
a large dish, and some boiled potatoes swimming in water on another.

"She didn't _soufflé_ the potatoes," murmured Letitia tremulously.

"They are not even _maître d'hôtel_," I suggested feebly.

"You see," said Letitia apologetically, as I hacked at the
chest-protector furiously, "Anna is in such a hurry to get to her
singing class that she is at a disadvantage--"

"Singing class!" exclaimed Mr. Tamworth, laughing. "How funny! I must
make a note of it. I hope you don't mind, Mrs. Fairfax. You see, I'm
really studying--"

"I do mind," retorted my wife quite irritably. "I quite see that we have
given you material for study. Still, it is disagreeable to reflect that
our little--"

"My dear Mrs. Fairfax," he cried, genuinely distressed, "please believe
that I am not serious. I only want you to feel that I do not share your
annoyance. This--why, all this amuses me. It is interesting. It is
great. Look at my good friend, Fairfax, wearing an expression that
suggests Hamlet in his most melancholy moment. Why? I ask you, why?"

"I--I--I'm glad you feel that way about it," said Letitia, with tears in
her eyes, "but--but perhaps, you are just pretending--to make me feel
comfortable."

"It is good of you, old chap," I muttered, feeling as abject as though I
had just put out my hand for alms and Arthur had popped a nickel into
it.

"How absurd!" he laughed. "Why, I'm a great diner-out, and I know all
about it, and--shall I read you a bit more about the Women's Domestic
Guild?"

"I don't think I could stand it," Letitia said tremulously. "Sometime,
perhaps, Mr. Tamworth, but not to-night. There are still the
ices--_glaces aux fraises_. They can't be burnt. They can't be boiled in
water."

_They_ were not. _They_ were brought on, in a dingy cardboard box,
marked with the name of the purveyor, and the legend: "Ice-cream
saloon--Columbus Avenue." _They_ appeared on the edge of Sylvia's
finger, balanced by a loop of tape. The cardboard box oozed and
perspired. The lid was stuck down. Pink splashes dripped.

"Anna says to tell you," giggled the wide-mouthed Sylvia, "that she got
American ice-cream. The French is ten cents more, and there ain't no
difference."

This time Arthur Tamworth laughed without an apology. Probably he had a
sense of humor, and thought it funny to see my poor little exquisitely
attired wife, sitting at the head of her orchid-laden table, and
confronted with a question of "ten cents more." That is exactly what a
sense of humor achieves. Again, I protest that it is a curse. Mute
sympathy would have been more endurable than loud mirth.

Letitia left us while we smoked. She did not go to the drawing-room,
but--as I learned afterward--retired to her bedroom to weep. When we
joined her later, her eyes were red and swollen. She had lowered the
lights, so that this fact should not be too glaringly evident. We sat
and talked. I will do Arthur Tamworth the justice to say that he was
quite unperturbed and made strenuous efforts to be entertaining. But the
tone of our conversation suggested a house of mourning. Absolute failure
had benumbed us into a sort of mental paralysis. I kept looking at the
clock--longing for my guest to go. Letitia yawned persistently, although
she made brave efforts to appear alert. But he stayed until eleven
o'clock, and when he did go, remarked, with what I thought ill-timed
irony, "I've had a delightful time."

"Never--never have I felt so small," Letitia almost sobbed, as soon as
we were alone. "And, Archie, I feel so ill, too. That brutal lobster--I
_had_ to eat it, and it won't digest. Capped by the terrible beef-steak,
it has nearly done for me."

"Why did you eat it?" I asked querulously, "I didn't."

"If a hostess can't eat her own food, who can?" she demanded furiously.
"I would have eaten it, if ptomaine germs had arisen from it, and
introduced themselves. I hope I know my duty, and I hope that I am not
weak enough to shirk it. Mr. Tamworth ate a lot of it."

"He'll die in the night," I suggested cheerfully, "and then good-by to
my _Lives of Great Men_. It was not _homard naturel_. It was unnatural.
That being the case, you might have refused it, Letitia. It would have
been excusable."

"We won't argue the matter, Archie," she retorted, "I have my own ideas
of what is right. To place food before an inoffensive person--though I
consider your partner was a trifle offensive--and then reject it
yourself, is not quite etiquette."

"Would you eat it again to-morrow, under the same circumstances?"

Letitia shuddered. "Yes," she said promptly. Then, "No. Yes, I would.
No, I wouldn't. Really, I can't say, Archie. What is the use of
suggesting such an impossible case? I think I would eat it. But I don't
think I could."

"Poor old girl!" I remarked sympathetically. "We'll try and forget it. I
don't know how I shall dare to go to the office to-morrow, though. I
dare say that Tamworth won't be there. He'll be in bed. I thought he
looked rather feverish just before he left, didn't you, Letitia? His
gaiety seemed a bit forced, and I noticed once or twice that he gasped
as though he were in pain."

"The Women's Domestic Guild!" laughed Letitia scornfully. "A nice
subject to bring up at a dinner party! I call it indecent--like washing
one's soiled linen in public. Of course, there are old frumps who like
that kind of topic."

"Aunt Julia?" I suggested.

"I did not mean Aunt Julia, Archie. She is not an old frump, though I
admit that it was from her lips that I first heard servant question.
However--I wonder if we have any ginger in the house, Archie? You shall
mix me a little. It might ward off an attack. Perhaps a little weak
whisky and water will be better."

"I'm so sorry, dear," I said. "We have discovered one thing, however. It
is the utter incompetency of Anna. Out of the house she goes to-morrow.
Once bit, twice shy. What do you say, Letitia?"

"Will you tell her, Archie? I'm afraid I shan't feel well enough."

"Tell her? Why, of course," I answered, nobly emphatic. "I only wish she
were here now, while I have this strenuous mood upon me. Tell her? Well,
I guess so."

In fact, we both believed that Miss Carter was simply waiting to be
told.




CHAPTER V


"What _can_ have happened, Archie?" cried Letitia excitedly next
morning, as she entered the cubby-hole that I called my dressing-room
and interrupted my shaving. Her face was pale and her eyes shone. "There
is no breakfast laid, and--there is no Anna. I went to her room and
found that she had not slept there. Evidently she did not return last
night. Something dreadful must have occurred."

I put my razors carefully away, with the deliberation that great men
note at moments of calamity and distress. Then I followed Letitia to the
dining-room, where there was disorderly testimony to the accuracy of her
information. Nothing even suggested breakfast. In fact, the remains of
last night's parody on dinner confronted us and evidently declined to
seek oblivion. Letitia looked aghast at the débris, but as I had just
left myself enough time to dally with the matutinal bacon and tea, I
could not repress my extreme annoyance. I could not--and I did not.

"But, Archie," said Letitia, noting my vexation, "while it is most
irritating to find no breakfast, one must not forget that there is a
graver problem. Where is Anna? She is a human being, Archie. We must
accord her some slight consideration, even though she treated us so
badly last night. She must"--Letitia's voice sank to a whisper--"she
must have met with foul play."

"I doubt it, Letitia"--I felt awfully surly--"she is not the sort."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Letitia angrily. "She was an attractive girl--of
her kind. You may not admire her, but colored people would. It isn't
only homely girls who meet foul play. The newspapers always insist that
every woman who is murdered, or waylaid, is lovely, but that is only to
make the story readable. I've often thought, Archie, that the only
chance many girls have to be called beautiful is to be murdered. Have
you ever heard of a typewriter girl who has come to grief, and who
wasn't beautiful? I haven't. Some of them are regular old crows, but as
soon as they reach the newspapers they are transfigured. Crime seems to
be a great beautifier. Anna may have been made away with. If so, we
shall read that she was a dazzlingly charming mulatto."

"In the meantime, dear," I said patiently, "what shall we do for
breakfast? Everything seems tragic, you know, on an empty stomach."

"If I only knew how to make tea!" sighed Letitia reflectively. "I've
often seen Aunt Julia make it, but I quite forget if you heat the
tea-leaves and pour water over them, or if you boil them in a saucepan.
Oh, how foolish I was to neglect these trifles! But I never thought I
should ever have to make tea."

We were in the kitchen, where the remains of last night's mock-dinner
were even more glaringly apparent. It was sickening, in the dewy morn,
to see the soiled dishes and the encumbered plates. There was the piece
of lobster that Arthur Tamworth left. There was my soup, in a cold,
coagulated mass, on the table. There was the _bifsteck aux pommes_,
stark before us. Letitia, in a pink _peignoir_ covered with lace, tried
to flit around, but there was no room to flit in. I experienced a horrid
sense of nausea, and felt willing to abandon breakfast. Fortunately, we
were both young, and had not reached that downward grade leading to a
placid enjoyment of breakfast. It is only the more than middle-aged who
find keen physical satisfaction in the early kipper. To the young in
spirit, the morning meal is but a tradition, followed with a certain
amount of sycophancy.

We found some milk and eggs in unexpected places and, as I was in a
hurry, we made a hasty breakfast. Letitia boiled the tea in a saucepan,
and in an ecstasy of originality, suggested that we cook the eggs in
that receptacle at the same time. It was not what one might call an
artistic meal. The tea tasted like ink, and the sweet disposition of the
egg was cooked out of all semblance of its own wistful, appealing
nature.

"You mustn't leave me in this unsettled state, Archie," said Letitia
nervously. "I couldn't stand it, dear. I--I feel quite upset. We must
look through the papers and see if anything has happened to Anna. And
perhaps it would be a good thing to notify the authorities. Who are the
authorities, in a case like this, Archie? Not the mayor, I suppose, or
the aldermen; not--er--the coroner?"

"Police headquarters, I should say"--a little doubtfully.

"Of course, she may come in at any moment," Letitia suggested, glancing
rather timidly over her left shoulder. "I quite dread it. Perhaps she
will return with a battered face, or bleeding profusely from a wound. It
would be annoying to notify--er--the--Policeman's Home, did you
say?--until we are reasonably sure. There must be some penalty for
uttering false alarms. Sit down, Archie, and I'll just run through the
papers."

I began to realize that Letitia was veritably wrought up, and that it
was no use contemplating my routine at the office until some light had
been shed upon the seemingly untimely fate of Miss Carter. So I obeyed
Letitia and sat down, while she, somewhat feverishly, took up the
morning papers and plunged into their labyrinthine recesses.

"'Girl decapitated by Trolley Car,'" she read slowly. "Let us see now:
'The sight seemed to infuriate the mob--car struck her in the left
leg--beautiful blonde.' That settles it, doesn't it? It couldn't be
Anna. The papers will certainly call her singularly beautiful, but no
reporter, whatever his political or religious conviction, could describe
her as a blonde. Ah, here we are. This certainly seems to fit: 'Woman
Drops Dead in L Station--Sitting bolt upright in an elevated railroad
station in Brooklyn, a woman whose identity had not been discovered by
the police last night'--Archie, put on your things, and go to Brooklyn."

"Is there nothing more, Letitia?" I asked, for I loathe Brooklyn.

She continued, moistening her lips: "'The surgeons unable to revive
her--Coma followed by death--Very handsome, elegantly dressed woman,
golden hair--' Well, evidently," said Letitia, and it really seemed to
me as though she were disappointed, "it can't be Anna. You had better
not go to Brooklyn, after all, Archie. Here's something else. Really
the newspapers are full of clues. 'Idiot Girl Found Wandering By
River--'"

"Read on, Letitia," I cried, "that certainly does sound promising."

"'Half-witted girl discovered near the Harlem River, beneath the bridge,
at One-Hundred-and-Fifty-fifth Street--singing snatches of
song--muttering to herself.' The singing appears to point to Anna, don't
you think, dear? Poor girl! Perhaps she was an idiot, after all, and we
have been thinking such cruel things of her, just because she couldn't
grapple with _crème d'asperges_ and _bifsteck aux pommes_. Let us see:
'She fought desperately with the police officer--burst into fiendish
laughter--threw back her veil, revealing dazzling beauty, dark hair, and
face of almost appalling pallor--' That can't be Anna. I suppose that
colored people feel pallor, but they certainly can't show it, can they?
Here's something else: 'Scores Killed and Many Maimed in Wreck Horror.'
Here's a long list of the unfortunates, but--the wreck occurred on the
Illinois Central Cannon Ball Train, eighty-three miles from New
Orleans."

"I am afraid, Letitia, that nothing has happened to her," I said
hopelessly. "I mean by that, of course, that I am afraid we shan't
discover anything in the newspapers."

"Isn't it exasperating?"

"Isn't what exasperating?" I asked. "You mean it is annoying that Anna
wasn't decapitated by the trolley car, maimed in the wreck, or dead in
the L station?"

"You are unkind, Archie," said Letitia, with tears in her eyes, "and I
don't think this is a happy moment for joking. Of course you must be
joking when you suggest that I am upset because--Anna hasn't had her
head cut off. It isn't nice of you, dear. But I imagine that you are not
quite yourself. This sort of thing does unhinge one. I wonder what we
had better do? No, you can't and shan't go down-town, and leave me to
receive Anna, perhaps dead on a shutter, or wet from the river, with
weeds in her hair, like Ophelia; or--"

"They wouldn't bring her here, dear," I ventured, and this time I tried
to be soothing, for I could see that Letitia was distraught. "They would
take her to the morgue."

"Ugh!" she shuddered. "The morgue always sounds so creepy and damp. I
can't associate it with Anna, who was so alive last night."

"And so disagreeable."

"Hush, Archie. _De mortuis_--you know the rest--and perhaps she is among
the _mortuis_. I think I shall go to my room, remain there in silence
for ten minutes, and try to impress Aunt Julia telepathically. She could
advise us, and perhaps if she knows of the plight that we are in, she
might--"

"Aunt Julia!" I cried enthusiastically, "why not talk to her over the
telephone? She is at Tarrytown now, and we can reach her. She is a very
sensible and level-headed old lady. She is most practical. I dare say
she could suggest things that would never occur to us."

"Perhaps," assented Letitia coldly. "As you say, she is very sensible.
As you imply--I am not. By all means, let us consult Aunt Julia."

Poor Letitia was very inclined to be fractious, and everything I said
appeared to tell against me. But I had no desire to add to her
difficulties, and I explained to her what I meant. Aunt Julia was an old
housekeeper and perchance in her long experience she had known this
agony of the vanishing cook. If so, she would undoubtedly give us the
results of her experience, and this might be of some service to us in
our dilemma. It was worth trying at any rate.

"You ring her up, Archie," said Letitia, appeased, as we approached the
instrument. "A man always sounds more important at the telephone."

"Not in a matter of cook, dear," I protested. "Aunt Julia will think I
am an awful molly-coddle, if I ring her up in such a cause. No, Letitia,
I will stand by you; I will not leave you until the matter is settled.
But it is far preferable for you to ring up Aunt Julia. It is a
household matter, isn't it, dear? I'll stay here, and--hold your hand,
if you like. Now, ask for her number, and--don't be nervous."

I held Letitia's hand, which was very cold and moist, and we stood
waiting to effect a communication with Mrs. Dinsmore at Tarrytown. It
seemed endless, and all the time Letitia appeared to be nervously
expecting an interruption--probably in the form of Anna, either dead or
alive, preferably the former.

"Good morning, Jane," I heard Letitia say at last, tremulously; "will
you please ask Mrs. Dinsmore to step to the 'phone? Thank you so much.
Yes, I'll hold the wire." Pause. Letitia held the wire, and I held her
hand. Then again: "Aunt Julia, this is Letitia--Letitia Fairfax, your
niece. Yes. Oh, yes, Aunt Julia, I'm quite well, but something dreadful
has happened. No. Archie is very well. It's about Anna Carter, the cook
you got for us. Yesterday we gave a little dinner to Archie's partner,
Mr. Tamworth. At least, I should say we intended giving a little
dinner. We gave something, but I don't know what it was. Anna was very
surly, and disagreeable, and to-day she has disappeared. We were not
unkind to her; we drove her to nothing at all. We intended discharging
her, but she has vanished. We are in a dreadful state, imagining all
sorts of awful things. Archie thought I had better call you up, before
he went to police headquarters. Archie"--turning to me, with horror in
her face--"I believe I hear Aunt Julia laughing."

At the telephone again: "Have the East River dragged? No, we never
thought of that. Why are you laughing, Aunt Julia? Yes, I heard you
laughing. Allow you to have a good time? If you _can_ have a good time,
at our expense, you are at liberty to do so. Archie"--turning to
me--"she says, 'Don't get huffy.' I don't know what she means. She has
just said we are a couple of fools, and ought to be spanked and put to
bed. Yes, Aunt Julia, I hear you. Yes. What? Will never come back? They
often, in fact, generally, go away like that when they don't like a
place? You are joking, Aunt Julia. I don't believe it. Wouldn't she, for
the sake of decency, and in the interests of common courtesy, tell us
that she was not going to return? Yes, I did look at her room, and I
saw no trunk or clothes. Yes. No. What do you say? Archie"--reverting to
me--"Aunt Julia says that you must be a nincompoop."

"Thank her, Letitia," I murmured, unable to keep back the flush that
mounted to my forehead. "Tell her we want advice, and not abuse."

Letitia, at the telephone: "Archie says that we want advice and not
abuse, Aunt Julia, and I must say that I agree with him. Amusing? I
don't think so, at all. I call it tragic. Forget it, and hustle for
another cook? If I only thought, Aunt Julia, that the case was as simple
as that I should feel extremely relieved. Thank you. No, don't come
in--please don't. I am quite capable of hustling, and Archie is here.
No. Really, Aunt Julia, I wish you wouldn't call him an ass. You must
remember that he is my husband. Even if he is an ass--which I am not
admitting--you have no right to tell me so."

"You seem to imply, Letitia," I interrupted, much hurt, "that although
you don't admit I'm an ass, I really might be one."

Letitia did not hear my little protest, but continued: "Yes, I will. Did
you say intelligence office? Yes, I hear. Is there one in New York? Oh,
thank you, Aunt Julia. It sounds so easy, and even delightful. One goes
there and just selects a cook from a whole gathering of them? Aunt
Julia, you have saved our lives. You think we are quite justified in
believing that Anna has merely left, and has not met with foul play. How
_should_ we know? After all, if she had told us, we shouldn't have
detained her. We didn't want to detain her. Quite usual? I can't credit
that, Aunt Julia. You must be a pessimist. No, don't come into town,
dear. If we need you, we'll wire. Yes, otherwise all is well. No, there
is no hitch. Good-by."

She hung up the receiver, her face wreathed with smiles, and placing her
hands on my shoulders, tip-toed and kissed me.

"Oh, I'm so glad, Archie," she cried, "that this horrible possibility of
crime has been dispersed by Aunt Julia. She says that it is quite the
thing in New York for a cook to vanish instantly, almost as though she
had been conjured away. It is the etiquette of cooks, Aunt Julia says.
And the delightful uncertainty of their return, every time they go out
for a stroll, makes life exciting."

"I can't see anything to be pleased about, Letitia," I said rumblingly,
for after all Aunt Julia had treated me rather badly at the telephone.
"I would almost as soon know that Anna had met foul play, as to realize
that _we_ have. We certainly have. We have been disgracefully treated
by that Zulu. And you seem charmed. At any rate we should have thought
better of her, if we knew that she couldn't come back, simply because
she had been murdered."

"Oh, Archie, I'm shocked," declared Letitia in a pained voice. "Such
bloodthirsty sentiments! Positively, dear, I feel as though a weight had
been lifted from my shoulders. I didn't tell you what I really feared. I
thought that perhaps she was vexed with me for not letting her arrange
the flowers yesterday, and that, brooding over this, she might have
committed suicide. Yes, I thought of that, Archie, and of what a life of
remorse would mean to both of us. That was my dread, and now Aunt Julia
has removed it, and I feel so deeply grateful."

"Perhaps you are right, old girl," I assented, cheering up, "things
might be worse. They are bad enough, though, for if Anna marches off at
a moment's notice like that, then they will all probably do the same
thing."

"But we shan't think that they have met with foul play," Letitia
announced triumphantly. "We shall know that they haven't, and we shan't
worry. That is what I like about it. Oh, Archie, I'm so glad. You can go
down-town, now, and earn your daily bread. And I shall hie me
immediately to--er--what did Aunt Julia call it?--an intelligence
office and choose a brand-new cook, somebody nice--"

"To wear the cap with the olive-green ribbons?"

"That later, perhaps," she replied, with a bright smile. "I shan't
insist upon it, quite at once, Archie. I never knew about these
intelligence offices. What a splendid idea! Fancy being able to go to a
sort of convention of cooks, select one that appeals to you, and bring
her home. Isn't it clever? Certainly New York is the town for novelty
and inventiveness. London and Paris are not in it. How London would open
its sleepy old eyes at the notion of an intelligence office! I suppose
it has never even heard of such a thing."

"I must be off, Letitia. I am dreadfully late, and--"

"Good-by, old boy. When you come back to-night, you'll find everything
more satisfactory. For we'll have a cook, and a good one, and--the
thought of Anna will be just a horrid nightmare and nothing more."




CHAPTER VI


My prediction was fulfilled. Arthur Tamworth did not appear at the
office. Instead, he telephoned from his house, that, owing to a slight
indisposition, he would remain at home for the day. The clerks were
mystified, as Mr. Tamworth had never been known to absent himself from
his business. To me, of course, it was clear as a pikestaff and grimly I
declined to discuss the matter with the bookkeeper. I had an odiously
guilty feeling, and in the matter of "secrets" it seemed to me that I
could give Lady Audley points. The day dragged horribly. I was weighted
down by my dreary knowledge, and as I sat at my desk, the various
courses of our distinctly coarse and brutal dinner passed before my mind
in lugubrious procession. I felt as Mathias must have done in _The
Bells_ with the odious souvenir of the lime-kiln on his conscience.
However, in exultant optimism, I argued that this little "set-back"
already belonged to the past, and I resolved to keep Tamworth's pitiful
plight from Letitia, unless he died, victim of my hospitality. By the
time I reached our apartment I had driven all these tantalizing
thoughts from my mind, and when Letitia met me with a smile of
affectionate welcome the past had been pushed back to its proper place.

"Sh!" said Letitia mysteriously, with a finger on her lips, as we went
to the drawing-room, "I've got her, Archie. She's in the kitchen
preparing dinner, and--and--you'll never guess, dear, so I may as well
tell you the news. She--she used to be with the Vanderbilts!"

My wife was all excitement. There was a flush on her face, and I had
never seen her look prettier. She was dressed for dinner, in still
another evening gown, all white. There were forget-me-nots in her hair,
and at her bosom. Letitia spoke in a whisper, as though she were afraid
that a mere voice would startle the latest acquisition. Her enthusiasm,
however, was contagious, and as she followed me to my dressing-room,
where I quickly exchanged my business clothes for discreet broadcloth, I
began to share her gay anticipation.

"Yes," she continued eagerly, "I went to the intelligence office and
subscribed. At first, Archie, I felt most mortified. A dozen servant
girls sat there, like at a minstrel show. They seemed to be quite
lacking in old-fashioned respect and were not a bit abashed in the
presence of prospective mistresses. They talked and laughed, and I could
have sworn that they were criticising _me_. I tried not to hear them,
but I know--yes, Archie, I know--that one girl, with a face that I shall
never forget, meant me, when she remarked to a friend, 'She's a fool and
I'm not taking any, thanks. I hate a fool.' Of course, I pretended not
to notice, but--"

Letitia reddened and seemed to forget her present satisfaction in the
thought of her recent humiliation. She went on: "Fortunately, I was not
the only one who needed a cook. At least fifty ladies were there,
looking strangely desperate. One of them spoke to me, most
impertinently, I thought. She was a stout matron and she said to me,
very rudely: 'Is this your first time in hell?' I didn't answer her, and
she smiled and passed on. I heard her tell the proprietress of the
office that she had a bicycle with a coaster brake, that she was
willing, if necessary, to place at the disposal of her cook, but that,
personally, she would prefer a cook who played the piano. I also heard
her say that she, herself, would do all the work for two hours each
morning while cook practised."

"Was it a lunatic asylum, or an intelligence office?" I asked, as I
knotted my tie.

"Oh, it really was an intelligence office," Letitia replied seriously.
"I thought that I must have made a mistake at first, and arrived at a
wrong address. It was all so odd. The ladies seemed to be cooks and the
cooks seemed to be ladies. Really, Archie"--with a laugh--"it was quite
like a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, without music. I heard one lady tell
Mrs. Jones, the proprietress, that she was quite willing to allow her
husband to take cook to the theater once a week, but she stipulated that
cook should not ask to go to the Metropolitan Opera House on Wagner
nights."

"Come, Letitia," I said impatiently, "I dare say you mean to be funny,
but I do hope, dear, that you are not going to develop a sense of humor.
You know my views on that subject."

"But, Archie, this is all true. It is, honest Injun. I am as much
mystified as you are. I thought I was dreaming, or at the theater. I
couldn't realize that it was genuine. Fortunately for me, Mrs. Jones
attended to me immediately. Just after I had heard the conversation
about the Metropolitan Opera House on Wagner nights, an old, rather
melancholy looking person came in. Mrs. Jones jumped up and said:
'Here's the very thing for you, Mrs. Fairfax.' And before I knew it, I
was on my way home with a cook who had been with the Vanderbilts. Her
name, Archie, is Mrs. Potzenheimer. She's German."

"So I should judge," I murmured. "Potzenheimer! Good gracious, Letitia!"

"What does the name matter, you silly boy? That which we call a
Potzenheimer, etcetera. Think of our luck, dear. On the way home, I
remembered Aunt Julia's suggestion always to ask for references. I had
quite forgotten all about it, stupid-like. Mrs. Potzenheimer looked very
sad and weary, poor soul. She told me that Mrs. Vanderbilt would be
delighted to give her a reference, but that at present she was in
England, visiting the Duchess of Marlborough."

I'm not a snob, not a bit of one. I'm a democrat to the roots of my
hair. Still, as this reflected glory shed itself upon me, I felt a
strange sense of elation.

"Which of the Vanderbilts was it?" I asked.

"How provoking you are, Archie!" exclaimed Letitia impatiently. "Isn't
any Vanderbilt good enough for us--to get a cook from? Suppose it were
Alfred, or Reginald, or William K. Vanderbilt. What difference does it
make? I was so overjoyed that I felt positively pleased to hear that
Mrs. Vanderbilt was with the Duchess of Marlborough. If she had been
here I should have deemed it my duty to call upon her for a reference,
and--you know what these people are--it might have been a bad one.
Absolutely, I'd sooner have a bad Vanderbilt cook, than a good ordinary,
plain affair."

"There is something in what you say, old girl," I was bound to assent.

"If _you_ think so, dear, I am quite satisfied," Letitia responded
readily. "But there is one thing about Mrs. Potzenheimer--by-the-by, she
suggests that we call her Nellie--that troubles me. She says she never
wants to go out."

"And that troubles you!" I exclaimed, astonished. "I should think you
would be rejoiced. We shall feel so much safer in the knowledge that
Mrs. Potzen--Nellie--is always in the kitchen."

"But it is so sad, Archie," persisted Letitia. "When I asked her what
night she would like to go out, she burst out crying. She said she had
nowhere to go--that she was old, and that nobody cared for her. She wept
for ten minutes, and I think--I'm not sure, Archie--that I joined her.
Poor old soul! My first impulse was to ask her to come in and sit with
us--"

"Letitia!"

"I said 'my first impulse,'" she went on firmly. "I never act on first
impulses, and I did not do so this time. Just the same, I felt sorry
for cook. Perhaps she will get chummy with the servants in other
apartments. She seems so respectable and dresses neatly in black. A more
striking contrast to Anna Carter could scarcely be imagined. She is
extremely quiet, and sits down a good deal. Each time I have seen her
she has been 'resting her bones' as she calls it. Isn't it pitiful,
Archie, to think of such a woman being forced to earn her living,
instead of passing her days in a little cottage with honeysuckle all
over it--"

"But there are none in New York, dear."

"You needn't be so disgustingly literal, Archie," Letitia protested with
a pout. "I say that it is a pity she can't pass her days in a little
cottage with honeysuckle all over it, and with her grandchildren grouped
around her knee."

"Is she so fearfully old?" I asked in alarm.

"One needn't be disgracefully antique to have grandchildren," my wife
declared. "You are so old-fashioned, dear. You revel in pictures of
white-haired, toothless, old creatures when you hear of grandmothers. If
my grandmother were alive to-day she would be just fifty-three. She
married at sixteen."

"They always do, nowadays," I retorted cynically. "Sixteen seems to be
the age for women to marry at when they intend to become grandmothers."

"Hush!" cried Letitia, for at that moment Mrs. Potzenheimer came in to
tell us that dinner was served. Most aged and infirm was Mrs.
Potzenheimer, and I looked at her in amazement. She was slightly lame
and her face was wizened and pinched. Her eyes filled with tears as she
told us that dinner was ready. I had felt ravenously hungry, but the
sight of the new domestic nipped my pangs. Not being wholly bad, a
feeling of compassion took possession of me. A horrid idea that I should
be waiting on cook, instead of cook waiting on me, almost overwhelmed
me.

Our places were laid, but the table had no other decoration than a
bottle of Worcestershire sauce on a little mat in the middle. Never have
I seen a bottle of Worcestershire look so funereally lonely. Robinson
Crusoe on his desert island was a crowd in comparison. We sat down,
depressed and gloomy. I felt that like the dove on the mast--in the
song--I must "mourn, and mourn, and mourn."

"I wonder if this table decoration is a duplicate of Mrs. Vanderbilt's,"
I murmured, as I unfolded my table-napkin.

"It _is_ strange," Letitia agreed, in a whisper. "I can't understand
why she has 'starred' the Worcestershire sauce. It is really such an
ugly thing, with the brick-red label and the crude stopper."

"Perhaps there are some tenement-house Vanderbilts," I suggested
moodily.

"I told you, Archie," Letitia insisted, "that the Mrs. Vanderbilt who
employed Nellie is at present visiting the Duchess of Marlborough at
Blenheim Castle, so that settles it. She particularly said Blenheim
Castle."

Mrs. Potzenheimer brought in a seething dish of mutton stew, that
emitted a fragrant odor. She set it down with a heavy sigh. I noticed a
tear trickling down her cheek, and so did Letitia, for I saw my wife's
face grow serious. It was very good stew, indeed. If we could have
called it a _ragoût_, we should have felt more at ease. It was a stew,
however, and, with the best of intentions, it was impossible even to
think of it as anything else.

"She is much older than you implied, Letitia," I said, as cook limped
out of the room and we began dinner. "She really seems positively
decrepit."

Letitia sat looking at her food rather wistfully. "It is the electric
light, I think," she whispered--the constant whispering made me
nervous--"I admit, Archie, that she looks twenty years older, lighted
up. In the daytime I put her down as forty. But you know, dear, I
engaged her in such a hurry that I couldn't be quite sure. It does seem
cruel to allow such an old woman--"

"Well, dear,"--I was growing cheerful in the material comfort of the
moment,--"we don't force her to do it. She evidently wanted a position,
or you wouldn't have found her at the intelligence office."

"She was crying when she brought in the stew." Letitia's lip quivered
ominously.

"Why should she cry?" I asked with asperity--I carefully turned on the
asperity in order to combat Letitia's weakness. "Why should she cry? She
naturally expects to cook. It can't be a surprise to her. She must know
that she isn't here just as an ornament, or--"

"You are so hard, Archie," Letitia faltered. "You can sit there and
enjoy a dinner cooked by a poor old soul. Of course, I'm glad you enjoy
it. It is better so. But still--I can't touch it. She has unnerved me.
She must be thinking of her loved ones."

"You said she hadn't any."

"I didn't!" cried Letitia indignantly. "I said nothing of the sort. I
said she ought to be with her grandchildren, and so she ought. I dare
say she has dozens of grandchildren. Germans always have. It is their
custom. I suppose they don't want her--the wretches--as she has nowhere
to go. And she seems so inoffensive and simple."

"Do try and eat, Letitia," I urged. "You make me feel so greedy. Don't
be angry, dear, but don't you think it's a bit far-fetched? You engage a
cook with your eyes open, and then you won't touch the food she prepares
because she is old. She was just as old this morning."

"It isn't her age exactly," Letitia explained hesitantly, "but I can't
bear to see a human being in tears. Who are we that we should distress a
nice old woman so poignantly? What right have we to do it?"

I did not answer, for I thought that Letitia was a trifle exaggerated.
However, she made a brave effort to dine, and being young and healthy, I
was glad to notice that the succulent stew overcame her sentimental
regrets. I fancy that she felt a little better after she had partaken of
nourishment. Still, it was with great reluctance that she rang the bell,
and as Mrs. Potzenheimer ambled in, Letitia was distinctly nervous. We
tried to talk lightly during the removal of the dishes, but it was
impossible. Mrs. Potzenheimer's eyes were suffused and she sighed
stertorously. It was a long time before she emerged from the kitchen
with a rice pudding. I observed that one of her thumbs was almost hidden
in the pudding and this rather encouraged me, for I thought that it
would vex Letitia and stem the tide of her ill-advised sympathy.
Letitia, however, was studying Mrs. Potzenheimer's face and not her
thumb. It is my opinion that cook's entire hand could have been
submerged 'neath the rice and Letitia would never have noticed it. So I
called her attention to my unappetizing discovery.

"If she did that in Mrs. Vanderbilt's house," I said sternly, "no wonder
that lady has fled to the Duchess of Marlborough, and to rice puddings
_minus_ thumbs."

"I fail to see that there is anything particularly criminal in a thumb,"
Letitia retorted. "It is not the thumb of an outsider. She made the
pudding herself with her own hands and thumbs. Don't be so exasperating,
Archie. Oh, yes, I know that it isn't nice, and that it's very bad form.
But I shan't tell her about it. I'm not going to add to her burden.
Evidently, she feels her position--"

"And our rice pudding--"

"--very acutely. She seems to me like a woman who has known better days.
Probably the Vanderbilts treat their inferiors very badly. There is
nothing like the insolence and the superciliousness of people of that
class. It shall be my endeavor to show her the difference. I shall go
out of my way to be sweet and soothing to her. She feels strange, of
course. You can go into the drawing-room and smoke there to-night. I
shall go and see that Nellie is comfortable."

It was no use arguing. I went to the drawing-room, discontentedly
enough, and broke the rules of the house by smoking there. It was with
Letitia's permission, to be sure, but I felt uneasy. It was the thin end
of the wedge, and I hated to think of the whole wedge. My nerves were on
edge and I could settle to nothing. I kept fancying I heard Mrs.
Potzenheimer sobbing, and Letitia soothing her, with a "There now!" Even
the unsatisfied yearning sensation that had succeeded Anna Carter's
delicatessen dinner was better than this. We seemed to have engaged
trouble, at big wages, and the thought was maddening. If Letitia
Potzenheimered every night after dinner, what would become of me, I
selfishly wondered. Of course, I had my _Lives of Great Men_, but just
at present mere greatness "riled" me. The very thought of greatness
evaporated in reflections upon Mrs. Potzenheimer.

The clock struck nine, and still I sat smoking in solitary silence. I
picked up Letitia's Cicero, open at _De Senectute_, and it seemed
ominous. "Neither gray hairs nor wrinkles," I read, "can suddenly catch
respect; but the former part of life, honorably spent, reaps the fruit
of authority at the close. For these very observances, which seem light
and common--"

I shut the book with a bang. In sudden irritation I wondered how Letitia
could read such rubbish. Yes, rubbish, I asserted in mental indignation.
Thank goodness that my wife didn't hear me, and that nobody heard me. My
mood was surely no excuse for an insult hurled at the sacred memory of
Cicero, amiably addressing Titus Pomponius Atticus. How could Letitia
toboggan from Cicero to Mrs. Potzenheimer?

It was just ten o'clock when my wife joined me. She looked very tired
and I saw that she had been weeping. This touched me, and the hasty
words that my lips had formed remained unsaid.

"She is asleep," said Letitia gently. "She literally cried herself to
sleep, Archie. I insisted that she should go to bed and let me take her
in a little dinner. She managed to eat some stew and some rice pudding.
Her appetite was really good. In fact"--with a smile "she ate more than
both of us together. But I fancy she did it to please me. She saw that I
was genuinely distressed."

"You shouldn't have let her see it, Letitia," I protested.

"How could I help it?"--reproachfully. "She told me a good deal about
herself. She has no grandchildren. Don't interrupt, Archie. She has no
grandchildren for the very good reason that she had no children. She was
married many years, but never had--anything! Isn't it odd, dear, for a
German? She always had to earn her own living. She was a nurse girl at
seven. How sad to think of it!"

"What did she say about the Vanderbilts?" I repeat that I am not a snob,
but one can't help being curious.

"She doesn't like to talk about them, Archie. I don't know why. I
imagine that they must be very hard to get along with. But she did say
that the Duchess of Marlborough was crazy to take her to England.
However, she wouldn't go; she was too old, she said, and then she wept
bitterly. She asked me a lot of questions about the people in the
house--which, of course, I couldn't answer. And although she has only
been here a few hours, and has been crying most of the time, she seems
to have struck up an acquaintance with Mrs. Archer's cook below. While I
was in the kitchen, Mrs. Archer's cook called up the dumb-waiter. I
heard her say: 'What cheer?' and Mrs. Potzenheimer replied, in very low
tones: 'Rotten.' I suppose she meant that she felt ill."

"What a horrid expression!" I exclaimed.

"Nellie seemed rather perturbed when she noticed that I had heard her,"
Letitia went on, "and explained that she had met Mrs. Archer's cook at
the intelligence office. She didn't allude to the expression she used.
When she was in bed she called for a little whisky, and I gave her
some."

"Letitia, you shouldn't--"

"She hated it, Archie," said Letitia, with a wry face. "She told me that
it positively went against her, but that she took it for her heart. She
has a weak heart, dear. She drank half a tumblerful, as she says it
always puts her on her feet again after one of these little attacks."

"I don't like it, Letitia," I remarked suspiciously. "I don't like it at
all."

Letitia smiled and kissed me. "Of course you don't, you silly old boy,"
she said lightly, "you've been left alone, and I'm glad you don't like
it. I should be vexed if you did. Did-ems leave-ems all alone-ems? But
one must do a little good in the world, Archie. Suppose you were ill in
a strange place, wouldn't you be grateful to anybody who tried to make
you comfortable? Put yourself in Mrs. Potzenheimer's place."

"You are a foolish girl, Letitia," I declared, mollified in spite of
myself. "But if we are going to start a Home for the Aged--"

"Stop it, Archie. Now, stop it. You mustn't be harsh and unreasonable.
What happened to-night will probably never happen again. Would you like
me if I were hard-hearted, and cold-blooded? Think of Nellie as though
she were your own grandmother."

"Why should I, Letitia?" I asked impatiently, wound up again. "I've been
trying to think of her as my cook. That is all I bargained to do. It is
not likely that I should engage my own grandmother--"

"Oh, you are so cross--so cross!" sighed Letitia; "I have never seen you
so disagreeable. After all, Archie, you are a great big baby. You are
vexed because I left you alone for a few moments."

"An hour and a half!"

"An hour and a half? Was it really so long? It couldn't have been. Well,
perhaps it was. Anyway, I'm glad you missed me. It is a consolation. I
missed you, dear. It wasn't at all amusing waiting on a lachrymose old
woman, plying her with drink and tucking her up in bed. It was really
most objectionable, and I'm extremely lacking as a ministering angel. I
can't minister for a cent. But I can try, can't I? And--let's be as
quiet as we can, Archie, and not disturb the poor thing."




CHAPTER VII


Dismal, dreary, depressing, are adjectives that scarcely qualify the
week that ensued. They do not express the subtile, underlying something
that made my home almost unendurable. There was a sense of impending
crisis that was horrible. Mrs. Potzenheimer's ailments became more
numerous, varied, and pungent. My whisky bills were absolutely menacing.
Letitia developed quite a _connoisseur's_ estimate of spirituous
liquors, and the various brands of rye and Scotch, as well as of Old Tom
and Holland in the gin list, seemed to displace her student's
appreciation of Cicero and Ovid as light literature.

On three occasions we dined at a restaurant, while Mrs. Potzenheimer
went to bed. We generally spoke in whispers, and once, when I whistled
_Hiawatha_, Letitia nearly grew hysterical. This was not due to the fact
that _Hiawatha_ happened to be extremely hackneyed, but to the
circumstance that Nellie was trying to take a nap. How I hated it all!
Letitia was pale and looked worn, for she never went out. Mrs.
Potzenheimer was too infirm to open the door when the bell rang and
Letitia insisted upon doing it herself. The dinners of which we partook
at home were invariably composed of stew and rice pudding. They palled.
Nellie, when remonstrated with (and not by Letitia), explained that the
Duchess of Marlborough had been so partial to stew that she had
practically lived upon it, and what was good enough for Her Grace of
Marlborough was good enough, she thought--etcetera. At the end of the
week the mere thought of stew sickened me. It was a subject that I
detested to mention and an object that I loathed to see before me. Mrs.
Potzenheimer wept just as frequently. I believe she wept tears of whisky
and gin. I could have sworn, once or twice, that I saw Old Tom trickling
down her cheeks.

Then came the climax. It had been a dark day. The birds were _not_
twittering in the sunshine; the air was _not_ laden with the balmy
perfume of a thousand flowers. I had felt a sense of oppression all day
while at the office. I had brooded to such an extent that Arthur
Tamworth had begged me to take a holiday. Tamworth, by-the-by, had
recovered, I am thankful to say, and he never alluded to our little
dinner. At first he had seemed gently reproachful but this wore off. He
was now quite able to be up and doing.

The climax, above mentioned, bore down upon me when I reached my
apartment. There was no Letitia to greet me. The dense silence could
almost be felt, and through it I groped my way to the drawing-room. My
wife was there, in an arm-chair, propped up by cushions, and asleep.
Although it was the hour when, according to our code, it was barbaric to
be found in any but evening garb, Letitia wore a Mother Hubbard wrapper
of red flannelette. There were traces of tears on her face; her
eyelashes were wet; it was quite evident that she had just fallen asleep
after some exhausting experience. Her tousled and generally dilapidated
appearance was extraordinary.

As I bent over her, she moved uneasily, and I heard her murmur: "It's
Old Tom, Nellie. It's Old Tom."

Of course, I understood. Not being like the fools in the foolish plays
of to-day, I was quite aware that Old Tom was not a rival, but merely a
gin. Consequently there was no dramatic situation in my mind as I mopped
my perspiring brow. I was simply aghast at the inexplicable position of
my domestic evening.

"It isn't Old Tom, dear," I said gently, kissing her awake, "it's old
Archie."

She looked at me in perplexity for a moment or two before she disturbed
the silence. I thought it best to ask no questions, but to let the evil
tidings come all by themselves.

"The worst has happened, Archie," she said slowly, and she even forgot
to kiss me. "I have had the most fearful afternoon. I don't know how
I've lived through it, and--and--Nellie's gone!"

"Thank Heaven!" I exclaimed fervently. "If that is all, Letitia, if
there is nothing more than that to account for red flannelette at six
o'clock, I am immensely thankful."

She glanced at her undignified Mother Hubbard, but did not smile. "I
felt too worn out to dress," she said. "The mere idea of white silk
seemed farcical. Archie, the situation is absolutely red flannelette,
and--abominable. I feel I've aged. I must have gone white--like the
prisoner of Chillon. Oh, I feel a hundred-and-ninety in the shade."

"Calm yourself, dear," I suggested soothingly. "Perhaps if you tell me
all about it, you will feel better. Remember I know nothing."

"Poor Archie!" sighed Letitia; "it is a shame to worry you, but it can't
be helped. Let me see how it began. Ah, yes. After luncheon, dear--I had
some cold stew and a glass of cold water--Mrs. Potzenheimer complained
again of her heart and I was naturally compassionate. I gave her some
gin--Holland, I think it was, as the other was all gone. She was most
insulting, and insisted upon having Old Tom. When I told her that she
had finished it last night, she suggested that I run to the corner and
buy some more. For a moment, Archie--"

"No, Letitia, no," I cried in horror, "don't tell me--I decline to
listen."

"I said 'for a moment,' Archie," Letitia went on, "and if you interrupt,
I'll say no more. For one moment, I confess, I did think that I ought to
humor an invalid. Then I remembered my dignity, and I told her firmly
that it was Holland or nothing. I shall never forget it--never. She rose
and in a most matter-of-fact voice announced that her week of trial was
up, and that she had had enough of us, that she would thank me for her
wages, and that she was going. At first I thought she was joking."

"You don't mean--"

"She seemed perfectly well," Letitia continued. "All her aches and pains
had disappeared as if by magic. She said that our house was too dull for
her and that she had been used to life and excitement. She couldn't live
with people who didn't seem to entertain and who never dined out. I was
so amazed that I could scarcely speak, but I murmured something about
her health and she burst out laughing. She said that such a dingy
couple as we were would make any woman ill. Such ingratitude, such a
fiendish reward for my kindness, I could never have contemplated. At
first I refused to give her any wages, and she threatened some
Protective Women's Association on me, and told me that I hadn't a chance
against such an old woman as she was. So I handed out the money."

"Very wrongly, Letitia," I asserted.

"And if she had asked for double the amount, I should have handed that
out, too," Letitia continued, not heeding my interruption. "She made a
great point of the legal aspect of the case. I seemed to see a crowded
court-room, and you, Archie, being led in as the prisoner. And--and--I
almost heard a verdict of guilty. I tell you, dear, I was delighted to
escape it all by means of a five-dollar bill. It seemed a ridiculously
cheap way out of it. But that isn't all. It isn't nearly all. The worst
is yet to come."

"No more Vanderbilt servants for me," I muttered bitterly. "Hang the
Vanderbilts and their beastly system of housekeeping!"

"Archie," said Letitia mysteriously, "I don't believe that Mrs.
Potzenheimer ever saw a Vanderbilt. I was furious with her, and told her
that I should write at once to the Duchess of Marlborough and inform
her of the behavior of her favorite cook. I thought that she might be
contemplating returning to the service of the Vanderbilts. Would you
believe it, Archie? She simply grinned in my face and mimicked me. I was
so anxious for her to leave the house that I could scarcely wait. I
don't think that she was more than five minutes getting ready, but it
seemed like an eternity. After she had gone I went to my room to
dress--don't think, dear, that the red flannelette was premeditated--and
it was then I discovered that my diamond ring--the hoop you gave me,
Archie--that I had laid on my bureau had vanished."

"I'll go at once and get a detective," I exclaimed ferociously.

"Hush," she said in a tired voice. "Six silver spoons, monogrammed
A. L. F., that Aunt Julia gave me, your gold whisky flask, and my
tortoise-shell comb, with the pearls and turquoises are all missing. She
was in a great hurry to go, and I was in a greater hurry to see her
go--"

"And she was such a simple, inoffensive old woman," I muttered savagely,
"and you hated to see her work! And you thought she should be with her
grandchildren! And the cottage with honeysuckle all over it! And nowhere
to go! And a weak heart! And that infernal mutton stew--"

I paused in incoherent anger, only to experience a painful remorse, as
Letitia began to sob.

"That is so like a man!" she cried, turning from me as I uttered fervent
apologies and pleas for pardon. "You are a man, after all, Archie, and I
never looked upon you as one. I thought you were something
better--something nobler. I was mistaken. I find--I find that I
have--have married--have married a man after all."

I was greatly alarmed. This was the first sign of the demon of
disenchantment. Although I don't know why I was so bitterly chagrined at
Letitia's discovery that I was a man--I nevertheless was. For the moment
it seemed disgusting to be a man. I could have found it in my heart to
wish that I were a monkey.

"Forgive me, Letitia, forgive me," I urged, severely distressed; "I was
wrong. I hope you'll pardon me. Don't--don't, dear--call me a man,
again, in that tone. I can't stand it. Oh, curse this Potzenheimer woman
who has brought us to this!"

"There--there!" exclaimed Letitia, brushing away her tears and kissing
me. "You didn't mean it, I know, but after what I've gone through this
afternoon, I can't endure very much more. And you appeared to be
reproaching me, as though I were upholding that villainous hypocrite of
a woman, who seemed--"

She paused, as though expecting me to add "so simple and inoffensive."
But this time, I had learned my lesson, and I was so thankful for
Letitia's forgiveness that I had nothing further to say. And, after all,
I had been wrong to taunt her.

"You can imagine how I felt," Letitia went on presently, "when I
discovered the loss of the valuables. I didn't mind the whisky flask, or
the comb, or the spoons, but the ring you gave me, Archie--it almost
broke my heart to lose it. Just as I had made up my mind to send for
you, there was a peal at the bell, and in stalked a woman, who said she
was Mrs. Archer, living in the apartment below us."

"How horribly informal!" I exclaimed. "How do we know anything about
Mrs. Archer?"

"It wasn't an occasion for etiquette, Archie. Mrs. Archer was in a
desperate state. It seems that her cook spent most of her time with Mrs.
Potzenheimer, when we were dining out at restaurants on account of Mrs.
Potzenheimer's health. The irony of it all! Her cook was another
antiquity, with an aristocratic record. She had come to Mrs. Archer,
without references, but had declared she had lived with the Ogden
Goelets."

"Go on, Letitia," I said, in a Sherlock Holmes voice.

"_And_ Mrs. Ogden Goelet was in Europe, visiting the Duchess of
Roxburghe. _And_ the Duchess of Roxburghe had been very much attached to
her, and had been crazy to take her to London. _And_ she was too old to
go, and wanted to 'rest her bones' in New York. _And_ she was always
ailing, and nothing seemed to do her any good but gin and whisky."

"I guessed it, Letitia," I cried triumphantly; "I guessed it."

"She behaved precisely like Mrs. Potzenheimer. She came from the same
intelligence office. She left, at a moment's notice."

"Taking with her a diamond ring, six silver spoons, a gold whisky flask,
and a comb with pearls and turquoises," I went on glibly, still in those
staccato Sherlock Holmes tones.

"Or valuables to that effect," corrected Letitia.

"Certainly," I assented judicially, "certainly. It is clear, Letitia,
that these women must have been in league, and that a carefully planned
robbery has been effected."

"If you had made that discovery yesterday, Archie, before it had been
effected, you might have done some good. Of course, it is quite clear
to-day. A child could see that," she added impatiently. "I wish you
wouldn't interrupt me with such wonderful deductions, dear. I dare say
they _are_ clever, but--"

Letitia's irritable tone hurt me. The pain of these incidents had been
temporarily deadened by my Sherlock Holmes demeanor. Still, I was bound
to confess that, as Letitia pointed out, the case did seem simple.

"Mrs. Archer seemed furious with _me_," Letitia said querulously. "The
more we discovered that our troubles coincided, the angrier she grew. At
one time"--and here Letitia flushed--"she seemed to be positively
suspicious. She had noticed the constant communication between the two
cooks by means of the dumb-waiter."

"The dumb-waiter seems to be a sort of hyphen, connecting devils," I
interpolated epigrammatically.

"Don't be witty, Archie. Don't even try to be witty, please. As I think
of Mrs. Archer's attitude, when she first entered, I feel humiliated.
She admitted that she thought Rosie was here. Rosie was the cook. And it
was not until I told her of Nellie's departure, and the loss I had
sustained, that her manner changed. When I mentioned the fact that I
had missed a diamond ring, six silver spoons, a gold whisky flask, and
a comb with pearls and turquoises, she really heaved a sigh of relief.
She said, 'Oh, I'm so glad, Mrs. Fairfax--' and then she checked
herself, and added that she was glad the case was not complicated."

"I'll see her husband, and demand a written apology," I declared
indignantly.

"You are always too late, dear," said Letitia quietly. "Mrs. Archer
apologized profusely. She told me that her husband had always been
suspicious of people who live in apartments--since Dr. Parkhurst had
bungled up New York. She was very nice. She said she could see at once
that we were quite respectable."

"How insulting!" I cried.

"Insulting!" echoed Letitia. "If she had said she could see that we were
_not_ quite respectable, then it would have been insulting. Perhaps I am
describing the scene badly. At any rate, though it may sound insulting
to you, Archie, it didn't to me. She didn't say it in precisely the
terms I have used. Mrs. Archer is a very pleasant person. We grew quite
chummy. We added up our losses. Rosie had taken three hundred and
thirty-seven dollars' worth, and Nellie had gone off with at least seven
hundred and fifty dollars' worth. She admitted that I was twice as
aggrieved as she was. And I must say, Archie, I couldn't help feeling
pleased that I had the best of her."

"The best of her, Letitia? You mean the worst of her."

"I don't," she insisted. "When a woman confronts you angrily and
announces indignantly that she is a victim, it is a satisfaction to turn
upon her, with the irrefutable evidence that she is not as much of a
victim as you are. I felt a triumphant sense of 'There now!' Just the
same, now that she has gone, I could cry all over again as I think of my
loss. I put a brave face on the matter, for the sake of appearances. We
had tea together, but when she had left, the trouble all came back to me
and I think, Archie, that I must have wept myself to sleep."

"I suppose I had better report the case," I suggested.

"It will be waste of time," said Letitia. "Mrs. Archer told me so. Now
that Rosie and Nellie have gone, she remembers reading of two crooks who
have been robbing apartment houses lately. Like you, dear, she is a bit
late."

"I don't know why you speak so slightingly of your husband, Letitia," I
interposed haughtily.

"I don't mean to slight you at all, Archie. But you see through a case
when it is all over, and Mrs. Archer remembers important information
when it is no longer important. That is all, dear. Rosie and Nellie have
probably left the city, and the state, taking care to cover their
tracks."

"Still for the sake of other possible victims--"

"Never mind them, Archie," said Letitia promptly, "they must take care
of themselves as we have had to do. Anyway, now that you are here, and
that I have eased myself by telling you all, I feel better. And it is
such a relief not to have a patient with a weak heart on one's hands.
Positively, dear, I am relieved. It is as though I have shifted a
burden. It is almost worth seven hundred and fifty dollars to feel
comfortable. You really didn't need the gold whisky flask, and I can get
along without the tortoise-shell comb. The diamond ring _is_ a blow, but
I intend to forget it. I'll just put on my things and you shall take me
out to dinner, and then we'll go to the theater and see something jolly,
with rattle in it."

"Sothern's playing _Hamlet_," I insinuated, "and Shakespeare always
cheers you."

"But he wouldn't to-night, Archie. Who shall minister to a mind
be-cooked? One must be mentally serene to appreciate _Hamlet_. I want to
forget Mrs. Potzenheimer, and although I adore classics, they don't
exhilarate on occasions like these. Would you think me quite dreadful
and illiterate, if, instead of _Hamlet_, I suggest--"

"Mrs. Fiske in _Hedda Gabler_?"

"No, dear, just--er--Weber and Fields'. Do you mind?"

"Oh, Letitia," I said in a shocked voice, though I could scarcely
repress a smile of joy, "I am amazed. I should never have thought it of
you. Still, if you insist,--well, let us go to Weber and Fields'. We can
leave when we are disgusted."

"I shall stay till the end," announced Letitia firmly, "and I hope it
lasts until midnight. That is the way I feel to-night."




CHAPTER VIII


While a well-selected little restaurant dinner undoubtedly loosens the
trammels of a too obdurate and persistent domesticity, the restaurant
breakfast can scarcely be said to be conducive to an overweening
amiability. Those who have tried it will not be inclined to dispute the
matter. It is in the early morn that the term restaurant seems
singularly inappropriate. The luminous, glittering, chattering resort
where, at night, one may throw off one's care and temporarily forget
one's home and mother, is, in the forenoon, but--an eating house. One is
there, in vulgar materialism--to eat! The boiled-egg moment, that the
mere ethics of good taste assign to privacy--with the morning ablutions
and the care of the teeth--is a tragedy when translated into publicity.
Conviviality, at the boiled-egg moment, is an impossibility. Ordinary
courtesy is abstruse and difficult. Silence, the morning papers, the
birth of one's daily attitude--the natural cravings of the hour--give
way to the gloomy desolation of the public resort. Cheek-by-jowl with
other unfortunates, in whom it is hope to discover an interest--for
altruism is not born until noon, and mere selfishness monopolizes the
morning hours--the meal is a detestable torture, worthy of a place in
the catalogue of mediæval horrors.

Yet Letitia and I came to it. We came to it next morning. There were no
warm slippers for me; there was no loose dressing-gown for Letitia. We
dressed; we put on our bonnets and shawls; we sallied forth to boiled
egg. We were rather sullen about our sallying, and being devoid of a
sense of humor, we saw nothing amusing in the empty glory of our
prettily furnished apartment. I am told that the situation would have
been saved, for the humorously born, by this mere idea. Yet I am still
thankful for my mental inability to rout tragedy by comedy.

Letitia looked at me unaffectionately; I was able to regard Letitia
without rapture. The maintenance of the honeymoon mood is generally
strenuous--which is not meant for cynicism--but the honeymoon in its
most effulgent radiance must pale, as Lubin and Dulcinea seek their
boiled egg abroad. Alas!

"I dare not try it, Letitia," I said, shivering, as a morning waiter, in
evening dress, set the terrible thing before me. "I have a horrible
presentiment that it is bad. I don't know why, but I can't shake off the
idea. Eggs are such a lottery."

"I wish you wouldn't set me against my food," she retorted peevishly,
slicing the top from the offensive egg and peering timidly into it. Then
with a smile: "Perhaps it's like the curate's egg."

"Don't, Letitia!" I cried indignantly, "I loathe that alleged joke. It
is so silly and so played out. Besides, it was never meant for morning
use. There are some things that it is criminal to jest about--eggs, and
_Parsifal_, and cooks, and the Passion play," I added desperately.

I was determined that I would not taste my egg until I saw how Letitia
took to hers. They were probably of the same brand. It was perhaps
cowardly of me to let a frail little woman explore the mysteries of an
unguessed egg, but I was in a thoroughly perverse mood. I watched her
stolidly as she dipped in her spoon, stirred up the contents, and
transferred a portion of them to her mouth. Nothing happened. She did
not change color and I realized that all was well. For in the case of
the restaurant egg: _Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coûte_.

The tea tasted like boiled hay. It was called English breakfast tea,
probably because the English would never think of drinking it, and if
they did, they would never drink it at breakfast time. But it was hot
and wet--two qualities that are sufficient for those who have not
mastered the sublime art of tea-drinking. Letitia scarcely touched her
breakfast. She immersed herself in the advertising columns of the
morning newspaper, and was quite hidden behind the sheet. I was in that
odious humor when, to be looked at as I ate, was unendurable--something
simply not to be borne with equanimity. I was glad that Letitia couldn't
see me, for while she wasn't looking I did very nicely, and ate my team
of boiled eggs with relish! If Letitia had been looking at me, I should
have left them both. One can not always account for the morning mood.
And yet I have never been called a "crank."

"Archie," she said suddenly (and I quickly hid the egg-shells so that
she should not remark upon my strangely-found appetite), "I think I've
got it at last. It really looks as though there were a way out of our
difficulties. But I do wish, dear boy, that you would try to eat."

She glanced at my plate. She saw the egg-shells. The rolls, butter, tea,
had all disappeared. I felt a flush mount to my brow. Had I been
detected in the commission of a crime, I could not have looked more
uncomfortable.

"Oh, I see you have managed to do very well," she said in a pleased
voice, without a vestige of sarcasm. "In fact"--with a smile--"if you
do as well as that, without an appetite, I am quite unable to imagine
what you would do with one. You are a healthy boy--healthy but silly."

"Well, Letitia," I murmured abjectly, "you were reading, and paying no
attention to me--I might have been down at the Battery for all you
cared--so I had to do something in self-defense."

"Don't apologize," said Letitia, and this time there was an intonation
of ill-timed jocularity in her voice. "I am glad you were hungry, and I
wish that I had been. I've eaten nothing, and you don't even notice it.
You don't urge me to eat. It doesn't matter."

"Letitia!" I cried reproachfully. "Please--please--"

She laughed.

"I'm teasing you, Archie, and I didn't mean to do so. You are such a
lovely subject for persecution that I can't resist the temptation.
But--bother our appetites. I have forgotten the present and am looking
into the future. Here is a little advertisement that will, I think, put
an end to our anguish. Listen--"

She took a pencil and marked round the following, which she then
proceeded to read aloud: "Irish widow lady, with one child, wants
position as cook, in small refined family, of Christian principles.
Good home preferred to big wages. Call 33 Sixth Avenue. Mrs. McCaffrey.
Up one flight."

"Archie," said Letitia solemnly, laying down the paper, "I feel
intuitively that Mrs. McCaffrey is our fate. I read fifty advertisements
while you were trying--I mean while you were eating" (I winced), "and I
felt a warm, rushy sensation when I came to the name of Mrs. McCaffrey.
I believe it was telepathy, from 33 Sixth Avenue."

"Let me look at the advertisement." I took the paper, and read the
portentous lines that Letitia had almost intoned. Then I re-read it.

"I suppose that she means to bring the child with her," I suggested
ruefully. "That is the catch, Letitia. We do want a cook, but we don't
want a child--at least hers."

"But, Archie, dear," said Letitia seriously, "we have none of our own."

"How _could_ we have?" I cried, amazed and indignant.

"We won't argue that point," declared my wife, quite unruffled. "The
fact is, Archie, that we haven't any children, whatever you may say, and
however much you may argue. Under the circumstances, I don't object to a
cook with a child. In fact, I quite like the idea. She will be very
much steadier and less frivolous, and--Archie, I love children. I like
their prattle, and their cunning little ways, and--"

"But," I interrupted, catching at a straw with the zest of a drowning
man, "you notice that she wants to go into the service of a family with
Christian principles. Now, I don't propose to saddle myself with
Christian principles for the sake of my cook. I positively decline. What
difference on earth it can possibly make to a cook whether she broil a
steak for Buddhists, or Mohammedans, or Christian Scientists, or
Swedenborgians--or even, for the Salvation Army, I can't imagine.
Religion in the kitchen is just a bit far-fetched. I consider that
advertisement most insulting, Letitia."

"Archie, really, you--"

"And I suppose," I went on, wound up, "that we should have to sing hymns
with her every night and perhaps go to church with her on Sunday. I
won't lend myself to such new-fangled notions. Cook is a question of
dinner and not of religious belief. Besides, how could she know what our
principles were? We might be atheists, and still inform her that we had
Christian principles! I dare say that if we objected to her cooking, she
would say we were not Christians, and if we protested at her going out
more than eight times a week, she would declare that we were heathens.
The child is bad enough, but the Christian principles are worse. I'm
sorry, Letitia, but this advertisement is really a mass of palpable
loopholes."

Tears came to Letitia's eyes. They seemed to be frequently in abeyance
there nowadays, and they grieved me.

"For a couple who a few weeks ago knew nothing about the servant
question, and indignantly scouted the idea that there was such a thing,
we are getting on well," she said in a low voice. "You are growing
awfully suspicious, Archie. The iron seems to have entered your soul.
Because Anna Carter and Mrs. Potzenheimer were failures--quick failures
I grant--you are now inclined to put every cook in the same boat. Oh,
Archie, I'm ashamed of you. If you are always looking for evil motives
you will find them, sure enough."

She paused, and the tears welled up again. The sight was so painful to
me that--in sheer dread of its continuance--I succumbed. That is to say,
I had no further adverse comments to make and the field was Letitia's!
Undoubtedly, she knew it.

"You see, dear," she said in mollified tones, "you don't understand the
probable position of poor Mrs. McCaffrey. Imagine her alone in the
world with a child. She is poor. She must earn a living for the two of
them. All she knows how to do is to cook. She places herself in the
market as a cook. But there is the child! She can not smother it, and
she must take it with her. She is therefore anxious that the place to
which she takes it shall be respectable and--religious. I don't suppose
that she is too fearfully particular. But naturally, she would not like
to see the dear little thing in the house of a man who drank and swore,
and of a woman who--well, of a woman who behaved in the femininely
equivalent. So, just to protect herself, she says Christian principles.
I admire her for it, Archie."

Silence on my part. Letitia's triumphant logic was of course
unanswerable. I made no attempt to answer it, and Letitia was "riled."

"Do say something, dear," she urged.

"I don't want to vex you, Letitia," I said, "and that is why I am
silent. But you surely must know that men with Christian principles do
swear and do drink. Our old servant at Oxford had thoroughly Christian
principles, but he used to beat his wife regularly every night. The
Christian principles were there, but they were not sufficient."

Letitia knew that she had won the day and was instantly her own
delightful, charming self. "You are splitting straws," she said, "you
baby! I have a great mind to tell Mrs. McCaffrey exactly what you
said--and don't believe! It would serve you right if I went to 33 Sixth
Avenue and said, 'You'll like our home, Mrs. McCaffrey. My husband has
Christian principles. He drinks like a fish, swears like a trooper, and
beats his wife like a British workingman. But he is _such_ a Christian!'
Archie, I believe you're jealous, and that's the trouble with you. You
think that if there is a child your nose will be out of joint. Such a
foolish husband!"

And Letitia rose in her seat and kissed me over the table, although
there were two waiters in dangerous proximity, and an enormous married
couple, who seemed scandalized, at the very next table. It really did
look most unseemly at such an ungodly hour of the morning!

"Now confess," she said tauntingly, "confess that you are pleased.
Confess it at once, sir, or--or I shall kiss you again, and this time
much louder."

I tried to be stern, and to recall the various grades of vexation that I
had known since the boiled eggs were brought in. But my irritation had
vanished. My wife, witch-like, had dissipated the mists that had
obscured my good nature. After all, if she were pleased, why need I
worry? The affairs of our household were assuredly hers--although, up to
the present, I had suffered from their most uncomfortable reflection. I
felt better. Perhaps the much-despised breakfast was, in spite of all,
partly responsible for the mental metamorphosis.

"She certainly will have a good home," said Letitia, pursuing her
thoughts aloud, "and it is really nice to meet a woman who wants one. It
shows a refined mood. What did Anna Carter care for a good home, except
to go away from it every night? And Mrs. Potzenheimer? You are very
domesticated for a man, Archie--whatever you may be, you are that--and I
feel sure that Mrs. McCaffrey will take to you at once. And, Archie--I
shall teach the child to call you uncle, and me auntie. It will be so
dear and sweet."

"What an absurd girl you are, Letitia," I exclaimed, amused in spite of
myself at her ingenuous remarks. "You remind me of Dora, the child-wife,
in _David Copperfield_."

"I call that most unkind," she declared indignantly. "I always hated
that character. Dora was such a fool that I was glad when she died.
Please don't compare me to her again, Archie. I don't think I am a
fool. Of course, I select a rosy outlook. I hope for the best, and I
believe that most things are meant to turn out well. But I think I am
most practical, and sensible, and staid, and sophisticated, and--old
before my years."

I settled my account with the persistently smiling waiter, who appeared
to regard us as jokes, and we left the restaurant. Letitia determined to
ride down town with me and to set out at once in quest of the Irish
McCaffrey. I had some qualms about permitting her to meander around the
lower extremities of Sixth Avenue in the seclusion of the one-flight-up
resorts. But she overruled my objections in her usual vivid manner.

"When you come home this evening," she said gaily, as we sat in the
elevated train, and were whizzed south, "you'll find a nice little wife,
a nice little cook, and a nice little child."

"To say nothing of a nice little dinner," I added materially. "At any
rate, Letitia, I do hope you'll insist that the Christian principles are
not cooked with the dinner. If there is anything on earth that I detest,
it is Christian food. Porridge and griddle cakes for breakfast, cold
rubbish for luncheon, and overdone chops, followed by indigestible,
chunky pie--that is my conception of Christian food. I can't help
thinking that much of the immorality in the world is simply due to
Christian food."

"Stop it!" cried Letitia, laying a gloved finger on my lips. "You think
you are getting clever. You are trying to imitate Grundy, Pinero, and
Barrie, and I assure you that it is all lost on me. I want a cook, and
not an epigram."

"As I said," I continued forcefully and rather loudly, "much of the
immorality of the world is simply due to Christian food. Christian food
is easy and generally--boiled. The mistaken idea that sound morals are
the result of bad digestion is responsible for the inartistic plight of
England and America."

"Hush, Archie!" exclaimed Letitia, looking around her nervously. "You
talk as though you were haranguing a mob. And just the sort of nonsense
that a mob loves, too. As for the plight of England and America--you are
forgetting France. And look where French gluttony has led the nation! As
for lack of morality--"

"Bah!" I remarked perversely, "France's lack of morality is a phrase
used for advertising purposes, my girl. There is a bigger lack of it in
London and New York, but you don't hear so much about it, because it is
ugly--like English plum pudding and American baked beans. No people can
be really wicked who have invented the Duval restaurants. Compare the
light-hearted, cheerful, exhilarating, comfortably-stomached Parisians,
sitting outside their _cafés_ and sipping their _eaux sucrées_, with the
greedy English, absorbing stodgy buns and dingy lemonade, and with the
criminal Americans, assimilating poisonous ice-creams, and destroying
their mucous membranes with odious candies."

"At the next station I get out and walk," declared Letitia furiously.
"I'll leave you, Archie. Your breakfast has gone to your head. What is
the matter with you? Really, I begin to think that our domestic troubles
have unseated your reason."

The train was stopping at the Fifty-third Street station and Letitia
rose, prepared to get out. As a matter of fact, I had been enjoying
myself immensely. My words had been addressed to Letitia, but they were
selfishly designed for my own delectation. I liked to hear myself
talk--in which respect, I resembled a good many other people I knew.

"Sit down, Letitia," I said, "I've finished. I just wanted to relieve
myself of a few thoughts, which seemed relevant to the occasion."

"Everybody is looking at you," she asserted in vexation, "and--I'll get
out, Archie, if you continue. What must these people think of a young
man, excitedly discussing the ethics of food in the Sixth Avenue
elevated railroad?"

"In a train positively littered with advertisements of food," I added
savagely. "All around us are legends of pickles, and biscuits, and
sauces, and catsup--and horrid things that are bought cooked, because we
live in a country where the art is unknown, and where the cooks talk of
Christian principles. You are not logical, Letitia. It seems to me that
this is the very place where, if you don't think of food, advertisers
lose their money."

"Well, think of it," muttered Letitia defiantly, "but don't talk about
it."

"Following the example of English and Americans in the matter of
immorality," I couldn't help saying. Then lightly: "Well, Letitia, you
must admit that I am bright. You may not appreciate my clever remarks,
but I'm sure they would make a hit in print."

"Not with me, dear," retorted my unappreciative wife. "I think they're
silly, and old, and book-y, and I like you better in a home mood. I've
never seen you as obstreperous as this before, and it has handicapped
Mrs. McCaffrey for me, as she was the cause of it. And now, here I am at
my station, and--you can ride back to yours. Don't work too hard to-day,
Archie, and take a good luncheon--something warm and nourishing. I'm
sure that you are not quite well, and I shall call in Dr. De Voursney if
you have any more of these alarming symptoms to-night."

"One thing, Letitia," I said rather penitently, for it began to dawn
upon me that I had made an ass of myself. "Mrs. McCaffrey advertises
herself as a widow. Well, I want you to make sure that Mr. McCaffrey is
good and dead, and that we don't get a cook-in-law as well as a child."

And this time Letitia laughed and dropped a curtsey, as I lifted my hat
and left her.




CHAPTER IX


Smiling, radiant, and in her prettiest evening gown--a felicitous blend
of refinement and simplicity that the most abjectly Sarah-Jane mind
would scarcely dare to think of as a confection--my brave Letitia met me
as I returned from the sordid bread-and-butter struggle to sweet
domesticity. And I could see that the dove of peace had temporarily
descended upon my miniature household. It was Letitia of the honeymoon;
Letitia of Ovid and Cicero; Letitia, the provocative, the mutinous, the
delightful! It was no longer the Letitia of tinted Anna Carter, and
bleary Mrs. Potzenheimer, and the delicatessen dinner! I heaved a sigh
of relief as she kissed me affectionately.

"They're here, Archie," she said jubilantly, as I walked into her parlor
with elastic step, "and I had no trouble at all. Mrs. McCaffrey received
me most respectfully--she was her own best reference--and I made my
decision quickly. She has been here about an hour, and took possession
of the kitchen as though she were not a bit ashamed of it."

"Tell me all, dear," I asked hopefully, as I began to struggle into my
evening clothes all laid out on the bed for me by Letitia.

"There's nothing to conceal," declared Letitia amiably. "I was sorry you
put it into my head to ask about her husband. You remember, dear, you
insisted that he must be good and dead. And you see, I am clay in your
hands, Archie. Poor woman! She showed me a picture of his tombstone, in
an elegant gold frame, and then burst into tears. He was forty-eight,
and his name was Michael."

"And she spoke of him as Mike?" I interrupted.

"How _did_ you guess?" cried Letitia. "Yes, she did. How she cried, poor
soul! He was a drunkard, but very kind to her. I suppose there _are_
really good drunkards, Archie, as well as bad ones. We only hear of the
bad ones, yet surely some natures must be improved by alcohol.
Evidently, Mr. McCaffrey's was. He drank himself to death and, in his
last moments of delirium tremens, she heard him say brokenly, 'You can
always cook for a living, Birdie.'"

"Birdie!" I exclaimed, dropping my collar-button.

"Oh, I was very firm, Archie. I was, indeed. I quite realized the
indignity, the indelicacy of such a name for a cook. And it was not a
pet name used exclusively by her husband. She was christened Birdie, and
she showed me dozens of letters, all addressed to Mrs. Birdie
McCaffrey. I thought it best to start in a determined way, and I told
her that my husband was a dreadful crank."

"Letitia!"

"I just _said_ it, Archie, as I thought it would carry weight. I
insisted that you would never, never call her Birdie, as you were rather
old-fashioned. At first she was indignant when I suggested that we call
her Mary, and she actually asked me how you would like it if she called
you Tom. That was insolent, and I snubbed her quickly. I think I did the
novel-heroine's act. I drew myself up to my full height and rustled away
from her. She came to her senses and compromised on her second name,
which is Miriam--Birdie Miriam McCaffrey. Miriam isn't so bad, is it,
Archie? It's a bit Biblical, and has a sort of 'sound the loud timbrel'
flavor. But I've come to the conclusion that regular cooks' names are
not possible in New York, and Miriam might be worse. It's much better
than Hyacinth, or Guinevere, or Ermyntrude. Imagine calling out
'Ermyntrude, bring in the pie.' So you must really stretch a point,
Archie, and offer no objections to Miriam."

"Am I such a dreadful tyrant, Letitia?"

"You silly boy," she exclaimed laughing, "don't you think it for a
moment, dear. But with cooks, a tyrannical husband always sounds well.
I must confess that I made you out to be most overbearing, arrogant,
autocratic, and even insulting at times. You don't mind, dear. I thought
it best. A man in the house, nowadays, means nothing. Men are so weak.
But a bully--"

"I wish you wouldn't, Letitia," I said irritably, "I don't fancy being
held up as a bully. Where's the sense? And where's the fun?"

"I was not thinking of fun, dear. Please be docile, Archie, and leave
household matters to me. You won't regret it. Of course, I know that you
are not a bully, but my cooks must think that you are one, until they
find out what a meek, good-natured, foolish, old fossil of a silly old
husband you are."

With which she knotted my tie for me, shook me by my shoulders, and led
me into the drawing-room.

"The child!" I exclaimed. "You've forgotten the child. Tell me about
it."

There was no need to do so. Hardly had I spoken when the defunct Michael
McCaffrey's legacy to posterity joined us in the drawing-room. It was a
mouse-colored little brat, with hair that looked like blankets, watery
eyes that seemed to be edged with pink tape, a sticky face and hands,
the dirtiness of which would probably be called picturesque in Italy,
and in somebody else's drawing-room, and the delightful aspect of those
dear little things that play about the gutters of the east side. Its
nose was disgusting, and when I say that I do not refer to the shape of
the organ. The child ran up immediately to a green velvet ottoman and
began affectionately rubbing it the wrong way with the sticky hands.

"Ga-ga!" it said. "Ga-ga! Ga-ga!"

"Come away!" I cried, scenting the ruin of the ottoman.

"Come here, dear," said Letitia gently, but the child paid not the
slightest heed. "I hadn't seen it before, Archie, as it was playing in
the street when I called on Mrs. McCaffrey. It isn't--it isn't"--in a
disappointed tone--"it isn't a bit cute."

"Ga-ga! Ga-ga!" shouted the brat.

"Mrs. McCaffrey must not allow the child to run wild," I said sternly.
"We can't do with it in the drawing-room, Letitia. It must stay with its
mother. You must insist upon that. It is certainly not an ornament to a
room. A little cold water and some soap--"

"I wonder if it is a boy or a girl," mused Letitia, as she pulled the
hands of the brat from the green velvet ottoman to which they stuck.
"Mrs. McCaffrey didn't tell me. How _can_ I find out?"

"Ask Miriam," I said sarcastically. "She ought to know."

"You can always tell whether cats are gentlemen or ladies by the shape
of the head," Letitia went on irrelevantly, "but children are puzzles.
This dirty little thing looks like a boy, Archie. I'm quite sure that it
can't be a girl. I forgot to ask, and we really ought to know, don't you
think?"

At that moment a loud voice was heard calling, "Letitia! Letitia!" And
then: "Letitia! Where on earth is Letitia?" For a minute after there was
dead silence. Letitia flushed, and an expression of violent anger dawned
upon her face. I was too amazed to say anything. After what my wife had
told me of Mrs. McCaffrey's bitter antipathy to a change of name, this
looked like revenge. She undoubtedly proposed to show Letitia that she
had no intention of changing _her_ name. The child ran quickly to its
mother, and we were left alone, in a tumult of astonishment.

"You must go and veto that, instantly, Letitia," I asserted gravely.
"Stop it at once, before--before she calls me Archie. She'll do it. I
know she will."

"You go," pleaded Letitia in fervent tones. "Do it for me, Archie. I've
done so much."

"No," I declared relentlessly, "I will not interfere in household
matters. You have asked me not to do so. You can tell her again that I
am a bully, and a tyrant, and anything you choose. It sounds well, you
know. You can put it all down to me, and inform her that if she dares to
use your Christian name again she can depart to No. 33 Sixth Avenue, up
one flight--or two flights--or any number of flights."

Letitia scarcely waited until I had finished my chaste remarks. She flew
out of the room as though she had been shot, with the evident intention
of striking while the iron was heated. I closed the door because I had
no desire to hear. Perhaps it was an act of cowardice on my part, but,
after all, Letitia herself absolved me from implicating myself in these
matters. She had asked me to leave everything to her, and I had no
intention of thwarting her in this instance.

She returned presently, looking completely relieved. There was even a
smile upon her lips.

"How silly we were, Archie!" she said, sinking into a chair, "and how
ready we were to think the worst of a poor, hard-working woman. She
wasn't calling me at all. She heard the child in the drawing-room, and
was calling the child. It _is_ a girl, Archie, and its name is Letitia."

"Letitia!" I gasped. "That beastly, sticky, obnoxious little imp is
named Letitia?"

"Is it such a fearful name?" she asked quickly. "I can't say you are
complimentary, Archie. Of course, Mrs. McCaffrey didn't know that the
child was going to be 'beastly,' 'sticky,' and 'obnoxious' when she
called it Letitia. How should she? I felt quite amused, as it is such a
strange name to have selected. And yet, it is not at all an
extraordinary name when you come to think of it. I know several
Letitias, and I have read of many more."

"Do be sensible, my girl," I said, trying to be patient. "Surely you
must see that we can't have this woman calling Letitia all over the
house, when it happens to be the name of the mistress."

"But what's to be done?" she asked. "If you are going to suggest that I
ask Mrs. McCaffrey to change her daughter's name to Eliza, or Susan, or
Sarah--well, I simply decline. Nothing on earth would induce me to do
it. I made her consent to be known as Miriam, instead of Birdie, which
was quite an undertaking. No more of it for me, thank you. I've finished
juggling with these baptismal arrangements. You are most unreasonable.
What difference can it make? As long as I don't mind, I can't see why
you object. And--and--if there must be a change of name, I'd sooner
change mine. Yes, I would, Archie. You can call me Sarah, or Eliza, or
Susan, if you like. But I will _not_ ask Mrs. McCaffrey to forego the
pleasure of calling her own child by its own legitimate name."

"I certainly shall _never_ call you Eliza, Letitia," I protested
indignantly, "I loathe all those names. If you had been called Eliza, or
Sarah, or Susan--or even Kate--I wouldn't have married you. I feel very
strongly on the subject. Please don't suggest such ridiculous things."

"Well," said Letitia, and the tears rose to her eyes, "can't you--can't
you--address me as 'dear,' or 'love,' as much as possible? You are
awfully fond of calling me 'my girl,' you know. It would simplify
matters so much, if you could do this, Archie. Please do. It can't be
difficult, as you do it so frequently, and now when you know that it is
really necessary--"

"It seems such a dreadful shame to give up the name of Letitia, which is
charming, just for the sake of this woman's squalid little cub. It's an
outrage. I'm surprised at you, my girl."

"There! You said 'my girl,'" she cried triumphantly. "Now, wasn't it
easy?'

"I didn't know I said it," was my stern rejoinder, "and I assure you
that I don't intend to make any point of it. I shall do as I choose and,
anyway, if that brat is kept out of sight and hearing--and that you must
insist upon--we shall not be seriously inconvenienced. The lower
classes to-day are simply impossible. They--"

"Hush, Archie!" said Letitia earnestly. "You forget that there are no
lower classes. You are in the United States, and not in England. Try and
remember that Michael McCaffrey's child is just as suited to the name of
Letitia, as is the wife of Archibald Fairfax, a gentleman who is still
silly enough to tack an 'Esq.' to his name."

"Dinner's on table," said a rich, Hibernian voice at the door, and we
guiltily stopped short. Mrs. McCaffrey stood there eying me
contemplatively, and even from the cursory glance she was able to take,
I felt perfectly sure that she instantly realized the fact that
Letitia's stories of the bully and tyrant that dominated the household,
were undoubted myths. She was a large lady, neatly dressed. Indications
seemed to point to her possession of what is popularly known as a
"temper." And perhaps the late Mr. Michael McCaffrey was fully aware of
what he was doing when he drank himself to death.

It was a cozy little dinner of barley soup, very appetizing; a tender
chicken, ably accompanied with parsley sauce; vegetables, and a fruit
pie. But its enjoyment was effectually marred by the circumstance that
Miriam was accompanied to the dining-room by Letitia, who was growing
peevish, and whose "Ga-ga!" simply got on my nerves. It was most
discouraging. Tugging at cook's apron incessantly, Letitia junior was an
irritating obstruction. We could scarcely hear ourselves talk for the
perpetual "Ga-ga!" in the kitchen, and out of it. It was all that the
cub could say. Mrs. McCaffrey would exclaim indulgently, "Be quiet,
Letitia!" And then, for a moment, my wife would look at her in
amazement, while I bit my lip in vexation. I was unable to decide as to
whether Anna Carter's delicatessen dinner, without "Ga-ga!" was superior
or inferior to Mrs. McCaffrey's comfortable meal with it. It was a nice
point, and one that called for a deft and finely calculated judgment.

"I've got two Letitias now to wait on, I see," said cook pleasantly, as
she brought in the pie, while the child looked at it covetously and said
"Ga-ga!"

"And if you could manage to keep one of them in the kitchen, my good
woman," I plucked up courage enough to say, "we should appreciate it."

This was a mistake on my part. A few seconds later, doleful sounds
proceeded from Mrs. McCaffrey's region. We heard her slapping the child,
and alluding to it as a plague, and--that settled Letitia.

"Now see what you've done," she said, casting indignant glances at me.
"You have positively driven the poor mother to abuse her own child. You
are countenancing cruelty. I couldn't stand it for a moment, Archie. The
child has done nothing. It has merely followed cook into this room,
which was quite natural. It has said nothing."

"Pardon me," I interrupted, in vexation, "it has said 'Ga-ga!' It has
said 'Ga-ga!' persistently, and while you may consider that enlivening,
Letitia, I don't. If I had a child of my own, nothing on earth would
induce me to allow it to say 'Ga-ga!' It is most disheartening."

"Well, I shall teach it to say something prettier," Letitia declared. "I
admit that 'Ga-ga!' isn't cunning, all the time. Once or twice, perhaps,
it is not amiss. In the meantime, if Mrs. McCaffrey slaps little
Letitia--my namesake, isn't she, Archie?--out of the house she goes. I'd
sooner she ill-treated big Letitia. And you are so tender-hearted that I
wonder you can sit there so quietly--like a--like a--monster--"

Letitia rose and went into the kitchen. I fancied that I heard her
kissing Mrs. McCaffrey's cub, but I could not be sure--and preferred
_not_ to be sure. It was a point upon which I desired no illumination.
It was one of the many things that it is better not to know. Sullenly, I
finished my dinner alone, while Letitia talked with cook. It seemed like
an endless conversation. These kitchen interludes began to pall upon
me. Letitia was either putting a cook to bed or discussing maternity
with her. There seemed to be no escape from this preposterous condition
of affairs. If I had slapped Letitia, Mrs. McCaffrey would probably have
been up in arms about Christian principles. However, it was like the
case of my old Oxford servant, before mentioned, who was such a
Christian that he used to beat his wife punctually at ten o'clock every
night. Not that she minded in the least. My own opinion is that she
liked it, as Mrs. McCaffrey's child probably did. In this, as in many
other matters, there is no accounting for taste.

I went moodily to the drawing-room and smoked viciously. I made "rings,"
and watched them dissolve in the atmosphere. I contrasted what was, with
what should be. The scene lacked the placid picture of Letitia reading
Cicero beneath the rosy lamplight. Letitia was haranguing a cook and her
husband was temporarily forgotten. No wonder that I felt bitter, and
brooded over the unsolved enigma known as the "servant question."

When Letitia joined me, she led in the dirty brat by the hand. The
juvenile McCaffrey had evidently been washed. There was a line round its
neck that showed the limit of the operation. It had a sugar stick in
its mouth, which mercifully excluded "Ga-ga!" from utterance. Letitia
seemed rather thoughtful, and came up to me gently.

"I'm sorry if I spoke harshly," she said, kissing me, "but--but--things
do seem to go so wrong, dear, don't they? I told Mrs. McCaffrey never to
touch her child again, and I asked her about her Christian principles."

"Good!" I exclaimed savagely.

"She was rather surprised, and a trifle impertinent, and thought that
ladies without children should not offer advice to mothers. From a few
remarks that she let drop unconsciously, I couldn't help thinking,
Archie, that she has had other children--plenty of them--dozens--"

"Let us hope that they are dead," I said, in the quietude of despair.

"Anyway, they don't matter, do they, as they are not here? Certainly,
Archie, I don't see why she shouldn't have had other children. Letitia
doesn't look to me like a first-born. She suggests the end of a long
scale--the culmination of a series. I don't know why. It doesn't concern
us, though. I have offered to take care of the child this evening as
Mrs. McCaffrey is going to see a sister who lives in Tremont. I
couldn't well refuse, could I? We are not going out."

"Oh, hang it!" I cried. "An evening of 'Ga-ga!' You might have
considered _me_. It is all very well to think so much of Mrs. McCaffrey.
But, of course, _I_ haven't a sister in Tremont, and _I've_ got to stay
in and face the music."

"Archie! Archie!" Letitia pleaded, "you are getting to be a regular old,
discontented, married man. You are beginning to talk to me as though--as
though I irritated you, and you couldn't stand me. Oh, dear! I should
never, never have thought that merely on account of a cook--"

"Of three cooks!" I insisted.

Letitia turned away from me, looking miserable, and my heart smote me.
The only thing to do was to make the best of it, after all. I had a
particular objection to degenerating into an ogre-husband, and probably
I had been exceedingly cross. Yet this situation was not due to Letitia
any more than it was to me. It was due to the probably noisome Mr.
McCaffrey, now defunct. He was responsible for the abominable child, and
had gone peacefully to his rest without a qualm. Even cook, herself, was
powerless. Domesticity was not all beer and skittles. So I smiled, and
tried to look pleasantly at the brat. It was not an easy task,
especially when I heard the front door shut and realized that the
cook-parent was on her way to Tremont, and our fate was "Ga-ga!" until
bed did us part. The child was eating the sugar sticks avidly, and was
refreshingly tranquil and silent. I took up an evening paper, hoping for
the best; Letitia made a feint at Ovid with one eye on the juvenile
McCaffrey.

This did not last long. The brat grew restless and wandered
disconsolately around the room, leaving traces of sticky fingers
everywhere. Letitia merely pretended to read; I could see that. She
followed the child around with one eye, but said nothing, probably
unwilling to disturb me. Poor Letitia! The idea that she was frightened
of me was appalling. I could never endure that. I tried to lose myself
in absorbing stories of fires, and abductions, and murders. The murders
seemed particularly lively--almost sporty. Then I made up my mind to be
good-natured and was even planning a game of hide-and-seek, or
blindman's-buff, or hunt-the-slipper with Letitia and the McCaffrey cub,
when my good intentions were shattered.

The child began to yell. It put its finger in its mouth and shouted.
Great tears rolled down its cheeks. Its face was distorted. It threw
itself down on the tiger-head and commenced to kick. The room was
filled with this alarming demonstration. Letitia rose, her face white; I
stood up suddenly, aghast at the din.

"Great goodness!" cried Letitia in consternation. "It is a fit, I
think--or a convulsion--or a paralytic stroke. What's to be done,
Archie? Suppose--suppose--it dies before Mrs. McCaffrey gets back? Oh,
if I were only a mother, I should know what to do. Why--I wonder why I'm
not a mother!"

We were both kneeling beside the child, who was still shouting blue
murders. Letitia lifted it up and held it upon her lap. I don't know
what I did. I fancy I stroked a head--but I don't know whether it was
Letitia's or the child's. To add to the complexity of the situation the
front-door bell rang, and I was obliged, in this cookless emergency, to
go to the door. Mrs. Archer had called to know what was the matter, and
to ask if she could be of any assistance. She followed me into the
drawing-room, and, as well as I could, I explained the case. Letitia,
herself, was almost hysterical and was unable to greet the newcomer, or
to introduce me formally to her sister victim in the Potzenheimer
incident.

"There's nothing at all the matter with the child," declared Mrs. Archer
authoritatively, after a cursory examination. "It's just fractious,
Mrs. Fairfax. See--how all the time, it is pointing to that cabinet with
the little Indian ivory ornaments in it. It is merely crying for the
ornaments. Just try it. I bet that if you open that cabinet all this
agony will cease."

For a moment I thought our neighbor was joking. The obstreperous
lamentations, the blood-curdling howls, the violent convulsions of
distress could only have proceeded from dire physical anguish. Letitia,
upon whose forehead the beads of perspiration stood in horrid salience,
put the child down, and in a frenzied manner rushed to the little
mahogany inlaid cabinet with the glass doors. The key was in the lock
and she turned it quickly. The door flew open, revealing a little ivory
doll, a wheel-barrow, a pagoda, a horse, a chess-table, a group of
animals, three Indian gentlemen in summer garb, and a whole stand of
pretty little Indian treasures that an uncle of mine had once bought in
Calcutta.

The screams of the child suddenly ceased. The flux of tears was
instantly stayed. The wild moans no longer rent the atmosphere. It got
up on its feet, in the twinkling of a double bedpost, as it were, and
with a whoop of joy, scampered to the ivory collection.

"Ga-ga!" it cried. "Ga-ga!"

"Oh, Mrs. Archer!" almost sobbed Letitia in an ecstasy of gratitude--and
to my horror she kissed the stranger on both cheeks (and she had never
been introduced)--"you've saved us--you've saved us! Oh, I thought it
was dying--that perhaps the candy had poisoned it--and that when cook
returned, all we should have to hand her would be a corpse."

"A very badly brought up child, Mrs. Fairfax," was Mrs. Archer's solemn
comment. "What it really needed was a good spanking."

"Oh, no," exclaimed Letitia, "never. Corporal punishment is so
detestable, and so uncivilized. And for a mere baby! The mother slapped
it while we were at dinner, and I gave her a piece of my mind."

"Well, now you are going to give the child several pieces of your
collection," Mrs. Archer said airily--she seemed to be a most sensible
and worthy woman--"and, of course, if you don't mind, it is all right.
Personally, I never believe in spoiling children. But--well I am so glad
it is nothing more than temper, dear Mrs. Fairfax, and dear Mr. Fairfax.
I fancied that perhaps a murder was being committed, and although Mr.
Archer warned me not to implicate myself in such matters--he is a very
suspicious man, is Mr. Archer--I felt that common decency necessitated
my giving you any assistance that lay in my poor power."

Mrs. Archer discreetly withdrew, and I mixed a glass of weak
whisky-and-water for Letitia, who was still quite limp from the fray. We
were both of us inordinately thankful, for what had seemed like a
tragedy was averted.

"Only to think," remarked Letitia, haply restored to serenity, "that I
know so little about children. I positively don't deserve to have any.
This is really an experience, Archie, isn't it? Such a terrible
commotion all hushed up by a few ivory trifles."

We looked at the cabinet. It had been rifled of its contents. The "few
ivory trifles" were all over the floor. The tiny wheel-barrow had been
robbed of its wheels; the pagoda was even then in process of smash; the
dainty little chess-table had a leg missing. But the McCaffrey cub was
joyous and smiling, and as we approached it, called out "Ga-ga!"

"Uncle Ben said they were very valuable, Letitia," I remarked rather
wearily. "One or two of them, he told me, could never be duplicated. The
work is very fine and artistic."

"Ga-ga!" cried the brat, as it tore off another leg from the
chess-table. "Ga-ga!"

"It _is_ rather cute when it's pleased," Letitia declared, smiling in
spite of the devastation. "Any way, Uncle Ben's present has been very
useful, Archie. Nobody ever really looked into that cabinet, and it is
in a dark corner of the room. I can put in a few little oddments from
the five-and-ten-cent store, and they will look very well behind glass,
and we can always say that Uncle Ben brought them to us from Bombay--or
was it Calcutta?"

We sat there placidly and watched the ruthless destruction of the Indian
treasures, anxious that they should not pall upon the McCaffrey darling.
Letitia, I am quite certain, was prepared to break up the piano and give
the pieces to the cub to play with, if necessary. But peace seemed more
than usually delightful. Only once did another outbreak appear possible.
It was when, at eleven o'clock, Letitia suggested that the child be put
to bed. A mournful howl was wafted from the cabinet, and we decided to
take no risks.

Just before midnight, Mrs. McCaffrey was sighted by Letitia at the
window, and a delightful sense of security became ours.

"I shall tell her," said Letitia, before opening the door, "that we have
had a fearful time, and have been beside ourselves, so to speak."

And as the amiable Hibernian came in, and we delivered over the child to
her, Letitia explained the situation, adding that we had been horribly
alarmed and distressed.

"Oh, it's nothing," said Mrs. McCaffrey indulgently. "Letitia's often
taken like that. She has a bad temper, like her father. Don't pay any
attention to her again, Mrs. Fairfax. Just let her howl. She won't mind
it."




CHAPTER X


"Let us take a night off and enjoy ourselves, my girl," I said at
breakfast in one of those elaborately, "off-hand" manners that so
frequently betoken profound premeditation. "Somehow or other, we seem to
be getting into a groove, and--missing things. Don't you agree with me,
Letitia? A nice little dinner down town and a theater will cheer us up
wonderfully. We owe it to ourselves, I think, and--well, I believe in
paying that kind of debt, and not letting the account drag on," I added
felicitously.

"Oh, yes," Letitia assented rather meditatively, and without enthusiasm,
"it would be very nice. Not that I feel the need of a change as much as
you do, Archie. However, it will do us good, and I'll tell Miriam that
we shall not be home, and that if she likes to ask her sister from
Tremont to dinner, she can do so. You see, dear, I fancy she was going
out to-night. That is why I hesitated about going to the theater. But
she will be just as pleased to entertain Mrs. O'Flaherty here, and if
you don't mind--"

"Not at all," I said magnanimously, and I really meant it. If cook
could have more fun in our "home" than I did, she was welcome to it.
Domesticity, under impossible circumstances, was not essentially gay. So
set was I upon an evening of forgetfulness, that it seemed a trifle to
resign our apartment temporarily to cook and "me sister, Mrs.
O'Flaherty, of Tree-mont."

"I fancy little Letitia looks rather pale," pursued my wife. "The run of
the house for a night will do her good, I am sure--"

The run of the house had not been denied little Letitia, though I was
determined to keep silent and not argue the matter. Cook's child was not
particularly dear to me. We had her for breakfast and dinner. She stood
and watched me while I shaved. She had become hatefully affectionate,
and abominably fond of me. When I kissed Letitia before I went to the
office, the McCaffrey cub insisted upon similar treatment. This might
have been touching, but it wasn't. Letitia called me hard-hearted and
callous. I believe that she was a bit jealous. Although she devoted
herself heart and soul to the brat, it had no use whatsoever for her.
But I, who loathed it, was singled out for popularity, and the
compliment made no appeal to me.

"Well, my dear," I said, as I rose from the table, "I'll take my evening
clothes with me in a dress-suitcase, and you can call for me at the
office at a quarter to seven. We'll dine until eight o'clock, and then
proceed to the theater. I'll get tickets this morning. What would you
like to see?"

Letitia's lack of exuberance was rather depressing. A month ago she
would have hailed the prospect with joy, and an ebullition of girlish
delight. At present, she was apathetic.

"Oh," she replied in a preoccupied manner, "I have no particular
choice." But suddenly she brightened up, and went on: "Yes, I have,
Archie. Somebody told me that _Merely Mary Arm_ was absolutely charming.
It is the story of a little servant girl, a drudge in a lodging-house, a
pathetic figure, that--"

"No, dear," I said peremptorily, "we get all the servant girl we need in
this cunning little home. I don't see why we should pay four dollars to
see Mr. Zangwill's English idea--idealized, of course, for the stage. It
would be cheaper to stay at home and weep over the real American thing."

"But perhaps," said Letitia thoughtfully, "if we could really feel sorry
for Mary Ann, we might be less harshly disposed toward Anna Carter, or
Mrs. Po

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