the roast now and then, will
you? See that it doesn't burn, and that there's plenty of gravy. Oh, and
Dawn--tell the milkman we want an extra half-pint of cream to-day. The
tickets are on the kitchen shelf, back of the clock. I'll be back in an
hour."

"Mhmph," I reply.

Sis shuts the door, but opens it again almost immediately.

"Don't let the Infants bother you. But if Frieda's upstairs and they
come to you for something to eat, don't let them have any cookies before
dinner. If they're really hungry they'll eat bread and butter."

I promise, dreamily, my last typewritten sentence still running through
my head. The gravy seems to have got into the heroine's calm gray eyes.
What heroine could remain calm-eyed when her creator's mind is filled
with roast beef? A half-hour elapses before I get back on the track.
Then appears the hero--a tall blond youth, fair to behold. I make him
two yards high, and endow him with a pair of clothing-advertisement
shoulders.

There assails my nostrils a fearful smell of scorching. The roast! A
wild rush into the kitchen. I fling open the oven door. The roast is
mahogany-colored, and gravyless. It takes fifteen minutes of the most
desperate first-aid-to-the-injured measures before the roast is revived.

Back to the writing. It has lost its charm. The gray-eyed heroine is a
stick; she moves like an Indian lady outside a cigar shop. The hero is
a milk-and-water sissy, without a vital spark in him. What's the use of
trying to write, anyway? Nobody wants my stuff. Good for nothing except
dubbing on a newspaper!

Rap! Rap! Rappity-rap-rap! Bing! Milk!

I dash into the kitchen. No milk! No milkman! I fly to the door. He is
disappearing around the corner of the house.

"Hi! Mr. Milkman! Say, Mr. Milkman!" with frantic beckonings.

He turns. He lifts up his voice. "The screen door was locked so I left
youse yer milk on top of the ice-box on the back porch. Thought like the
hired girl was upstairs an' I could git the tickets to-morra."

I explain about the cream, adding that it is wanted for short-cake. The
explanation does not seem to cheer him. He appears to be a very gloomy
and reserved milkman. I fancy that he is in the habit of indulging in a
little airy persiflage with Frieda o' mornings, and he finds me a poor
substitute for her red-cheeked comeliness.

The milk safely stowed away in the ice-box, I have another look at the
roast. I am dipping up spoonfuls of brown gravy and po