e how a thing looks, so long as it tastes right. How
_does_ it look?"

"So white and fresh, and sprinkled with green and purple and crimson,
the leaves and the poppies, you know. She----" But Mrs. Stannard broke
off suddenly. "What is it, Wettstein?" she asked, for their own
particular _chef_, a German trooper, with elementary culinary gifts,
appeared in the hallway.

"It's Suey, mattam, says would Mrs. Stannard come over a minute. He's
stuck, mattam."

"Stuck! Heavens! how?" cried Mrs. Stannard, up at once in alarm, and
vanishing through the dim light of the blanketed window. The presumably
punctured Chinaman was even then in full flight for his own kitchen
door, some fifty feet away, and Mrs. Stannard followed. No Roman in
Rome's quarrel was ever more self-sacrificing than were our army women
of the old days in their helpfulness. Had the hounds ravished the roast
again, as once already had happened? If so, the Stannard dinner stood
ready to replace it, even though she and her captain had to fall back
on what could be borrowed from the troop kitchen. No, the oven door was
open, the precious chickens, brown, basted and done to a turn, were
waiting Suey's deft hands to shift them to the platter. (No need to
heat it even on a December day.) Mrs. Stannard's quick and
comprehensive glance took in every detail. The "stick" was obviously
figurative--mere vernacular--yet something serious, for Suey's
olive-brown skin was jaundiced with worry, and the face of Doyle, the
soldier striker, as he came hurrying back from the banquet board, was
beading with the sweat of mental torment. Soup, it seems, was already
served, and Doyle burst forth, hoarse whispering, before ever he caught
sight of the visiting angel.

"Sure I _can't_, Suey! _The General's sittin' on it!_"

And Suey's long-nailed Mongolian talons went up in despair as he turned
appealingly to their rescuer.

"Sitting on what, Doyle? Quick!" said Mrs. Stannard.

"The sherry, ma'am! The doctor sent it over wid his comps to s'prise
him, an' my orders was to fill the little glasses when I'd took in the
soup, an' I put it under the barrel chair----"

But Mrs. Stannard had heard enough. Even though convulsed with
merriment, she seized a pencil and scribbled a little line on a card.
"Give this to Mrs. Archer," she said, and a moment later, in the midst
of his first story, the veteran was checked by these placid words from
the head of the table:

"Pardon me, dear, but