It was Betty Mercer who said she was hungry, and got us switched from
the delicate subject of which was the thief to the quite as pressing
subject of which was to be cook. Aunt Selina had slept quietly through
the whole thing--we learned afterward that she customarily slept on her
left side, which was on her good ear. We gathered in the Dallas Browns'
room, and Jimmy proposed a plan.
"We can have anything sent in that we want," he suggested speciously,
"and if Dal doesn't make good with the city fathers, you girls can
get some clothes anyhow. Then, we can have dinner sent from one of the
hotels."
"Why not all the meals?" Max suggested. "I hope you're not going to be
small about things, Jimmy."
"It ought to be easy," Jim persisted, ignoring the remark, "for nine
reasonably intelligent people to boil eggs and make coffee, which is all
we need for breakfast, with some fruit."
"Nine of us!" Dallas said wickedly, looking at Tom Harbison, who was
out of earshot, "Why nine of us? I thought Kit here, otherwise known as
Bella, was going to show off her housewifely skill."
It ended, however, with Mr. Harbison writing out a lot of slips, cook,
scullery-maid, chamber-maid, parlor-maid, furnace-man, and butler, and
as that left two people over--we didn't count Aunt Selina--he added
another furnace-man and a trained nurse. Betty Mercer drew the trained
nurse slip, and, of course, she was delighted. It seems funny now to
look back and think what a dreadful time she really had, for Aunt Selina
took the grippe, you know, that very day.
It was fate that I should go back to that awful kitchen, for of course
my slip said "cook." Mr. Harbison was butler, and Max and Dal got the
furnace, although neither of them had ever been nearer to a bucket of
coal than the coupons on mining stock. Anne got the bedrooms, and Leila
was parlor-maid. It was Jimmy who got the scullery work, but he was
quite crushed by this time, and did not protest at all.
Max was in a very bad temper; I suppose he had not had enough sleep--no
one had. But he came over while the lottery was going on and stood over
me and demanded unpleasantly, in a whisper, that I stop masquerading as
another man's wife and generally making a fool of myself--which is the
way he put it. And I knew in my heart that he was right, and I hated him
for it.
"Why don't you go and tell him--them?" I asked nastily. No one was
paying any attention to us. "Tell them that, to be obliging, I have
nearly drowned in a sea of lies; tell them that I am not only not
married, but that I never intend to marry; tell them that we are a lot
of idiots with nothing better to do than to trifle with strangers within
our gates, people who build--I mean, people that are worth two to our
one! Run and tell them."