I was quite ill the next morning--from excitement, I suppose. Anyhow,
I did not get up, and there wasn't any breakfast. Jim said he roused
Flannigan at eight o'clock, to go down and get the fire started, and
then went back to bed. But Flannigan did not get up. He appeared,
sheepishly, at half-past ten, and by that time Bella was down, in a
towering rage, and had burned her hand and got the fire started, and had
taken up a tray for Aunt Selina and herself.
As the others straggled down they boiled themselves eggs or ate fruit,
and nobody put anything away. Lollie Mercer made me some tea and
scorched toast, and brought it, about eleven o'clock.
"I never saw such a house," she declared. "A dozen housemaids couldn't
put it in order. Why should every man that smokes drop ashes wherever he
happens to be?"
"That's the question of the ages," I replied languidly. "What was
Max talking so horribly about a little while ago?" Lollie looked up
aggrieved.
"About nothing at all," she declared. "Anne told me to clean the bath
tubs with oil, and I did it, that's all. Now Max says he couldn't get it
off, and his clothes stick to him, and if he should forget and strike a
match in the--in the usual way, he would explode. He can clean his own
tub tomorrow," she finished vindictively.
At noon Jim came in to see me, bringing Anne as a concession to Bella.
He was in a rage, and he carried the morning paper like a club in his
hand.
"What sort of a newspaper lie would you call this?" he demanded
irritably. "It makes me crazy; everybody with a mental image of me
leaning over the parapet of the roof, waving a board, with the rest of
you sitting on my legs to keep me from overbalancing!"
"Maybe there's a picture!" Anne said hopefully.
Jim looked.
"No picture," he announced. "I wonder why they restrained themselves!
I wish Bella would keep off the roof," he added, with fresh access
of rage, "or wear a mask or veil. One of those fellows is going to
recognize her, and there'll be the deuce to pay."
"When you are all through discussing this thing, perhaps you will tell
me what is the matter," I remarked from my couch. "Why did you lean over
the parapet, Jim, and who sat on your legs?"
"I didn't; nobody did," he retorted, waving the newspaper. "It's a
lie out of the whole cloth, that's what it is. I asked you girls to
be decent to those reporters; it never pays to offend a newspaper man.
Listen to this, Kit."
He read the article rapidly, furiously, pausing every now and then to
make an exasperated comment.