, Bridget," said Mr.--er--What's-His-Name,
quickly. "You never come back till six or seven, you know, so----"

"Who's been monkeyin' wid my kitchen?" demanded Bridget. She started
to unbutton one of her gloves and the movement was so abrupt and so
suggestive that he got up from his chair in such a hurry that he
overturned it.

"Somebody had to get lunch," he began.

"I wasn't sp'akin' to you," said Bridget, glaring past him at Annie.

He gulped suddenly. For the second time that day his eyes blazed.
Things seemed to be dancing before them.

"Well, I'm speaking to you!" he shouted, banging the table with his
clenched fist.

"What!" squealed Bridget, staggering back in astonishment.

He remembered Phoebe.

"You'd better run over to the Butlers', Phoebe, and have lunch," he
said, his voice trembling in spite of himself. "Run along lively
now."

Bridget was still staring at him like one bereft of her senses when
Phoebe scrambled down from her chair and raced out of the room. He
turned upon the cook.

"What do you mean by coming in here and speaking to me in that
manner?" he demanded, shrilly.

"Great God above!" gasped Bridget weakly. She dropped her glove. Her
eyes were blinking.

"And why weren't you here to get lunch?" he continued, ruthlessly.
"What do we pay you for?"

Bridget forgot her animosity toward Annie. "What do yez think o'
that?" she muttered, addressing the nursemaid.

"Get back to the kitchen," ordered he.

Cook had recovered herself by this time. Her broad face lost its stare
and a deep scowl, with fiery red background, spread over her features.
She imposed her huge figure a step or two farther into the room.

"Phat's that?" she demanded.

She weighed one hundred and ninety and was nearly six feet tall. He
was barely five feet five and could not have tipped the beam at one
hundred and twenty-five without his winter suit and overcoat. He moved
back a corresponding step or two.

"Don't argue," he said, hurriedly.

"Argue?" she snorted. "Phy, ye little shrimp, who are you to be
talkin' back to me? For two cents I'd----"

"You are discharged!" he cried, hastily putting a chair in her
path--but wisely retaining a grip on it.

She threw back her head and laughed, loudly, insultingly. Her broad
hands, now gloveless and as red as broiled lobsters, found
resting-places on her hips. He allowed his gaze to take them in with
one hurried, sweeping glance. They were as big and as menacing as