bout supervising them in a
motor-car big as a house; they would--

"Now hold your horses, Father," she begged, dizzily. "I never did see
such a man for running on. You go on like a house afire. You ought to
know more, at your time of life, than to go counting your chickens
before--"

"I'm going to hatch them. Don't they tell us in every newspaper and
magazine you can lay your hand on that this is the Age of the Man with
the Idea? Look here. Two slices of home-made bread, I calc'late, don't
cost more than three-fifths of a cent, I shouldn't think, and cream
cheese to smear on them about half a cent; there's a little over a cent;
and overhead--'course _you_ wouldn't take overhead into account, and
then you go and say I ain't practical and hatching chickens, and all,
but let me tell you, Sarah Jane Appleby, I'm a business man and I've
been trained, and I tell you as Pilkings has often said to me, it's
overhead that makes or breaks a business, that's what it is, just like
he says, yes, sir, _overhead_! So say we'll allow--now let me see, ten
plus ten is twenty, and one six-hundredth of twenty would be--six in two
is--no, two in six is--well, _anyway_, to make it ab-so-lute-ly safe,
we'll allow a cent and a half for each sandwich, to cover overhead and
rent and fuel, and then they sell a sandwich at fifteen cents, which is,
uh, the way they figure percentage of profit--well, make it, say, seven
hundred per cent.! 'Course just estimating roughly like. Now can you
beat that? And tea-rooms is a safe, sound, interesting, genteel business
if there ever was one. What have you got to say to that?"

Father didn't often thus deluge her with words, but then he didn't often
have a Revolutionary Idea. She had never heard of "overhead," and she
was impressed; though in some dim confused way she rather associated
"overhead" with the rafters of the tea-room. She emerged gasping from
the shower, and all she could say was: "Yes: it would be very genteel.
And I must say I always did like them hand-painted artistic things. But
do you really think it would be safe, Father?"

"Safe? Pooh! Safe's the bank!"

They were in for it. Of course they were going to discuss it back and
forth for months, and sit up nights to make figures on the backs of
laundry-bills. But they had been fated the moment Father had seen Mother
and himself as delightful hosts playing with people in silk sweaters,
in a general atmosphere of roses, fresh lobster, and genti