the Red Cross, and the tips was big; but it was just as hard
work as if they had really been poor working girls, with not enough
recreation about it. So the third day they rebelled at the head waiter
and made Genevieve herself jump in and carry out trays full of dishes
that had served their purpose.

This annoyed Genevieve May very much. It not only upset discipline but
made the arms and back ache. So she now went into the kitchen to show the
cook how to cook in a more saving manner. Her intentions were beautiful;
but the head cook was a sensitive foreigner, and fifteen minutes after
she went into his kitchen he had to be arrested for threatening to harm
the well-known society matron with a common meat saw.

The new one they got in his place next day let her mess round all she
wanted to, knowing his job depended on it, though it was told that he got
a heartless devil-may-care look in his eyes the minute he saw her making
a cheap fish sauce. But he said nothing.

That hotel does a big business, but it fell off surprising the day after
this, twenty-three people having been took bad with poison from something
they'd et there at lunch. True, none of these got as fur as the coroner,
so it never was known exactly what they'd took in; but the thing made a
lot of talk at stricken bedsides and Genevieve spent a dull day denying
that her cooking had done this outrage. Then, her dignity being much
hurt, she wrote a letter to the papers saying this hotel man was giving
his guests cheap canned goods that had done the trick.

Next morning this brought the hotel man and one of the best lawyers
in the state of Washington up to the palatial Popper residence, making
threats after they got in that no lady taking up war activities should be
obliged to listen to. She got rattled, I guess, or had been dreaming or
something. She told the hotel man and lawyer to Ssh! Ssh!--because that
new cook had put ground glass in the lemon pie and she had a right to
lull his suspicions with this letter to the papers, because she was
connected with the Secret Service Department. She would now go back to
the hotel and detect this spy committing sabotage on the mashed potatoes,
or something, and arrest him--just like that! I don't know whatever put
the idea into her head. I believe she had tried to join the Secret
Service Department till she found they didn't have uniforms.

Anyway, this hotel man, like the cowardly dog he was, went straight off
to some