Читать книгу Wanted: A Cook - Alan Dale - Страница 4

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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!"