chenette at 7 A.M., even on cloudy mornin's?

If Bertha had been No. 1, or even No. 2, she'd have had her passports
handed her about the second mornin'; but, as she was the last of a punk
half dozen, we tried not to mind her musical interludes. So at the end
of three weeks her friendly relations with us were still unbroken,
though most of the dishes were otherwise.

So you might have thought we'd been glad, when 6.30 P.M. came, to put on
our things and join about a million or so other New Yorkers in findin' a
dinner joint where the cooks and waiters made no claim to havin' an
amateur standin'.

But, believe me, while my domestic instincts may be sproutin' late,
they're comin' strong. I'm beginnin' to yearn for nourishment that I
don't have to learn the French for or pick off'm a menu. I'd like to eat
without bein' surrounded by three-chinned female parties with high blood
pressure, or bein' stared at by pop-eyed old sports who're givin' some
kittenish cloak model a bright evenin'. And Vee feels more or less the
same way.

"Besides," says she, "I wish we could entertain some of our friends."

"Just what I was wishin'," says I. "Say, couldn't we find a few simple
things in the cook-book that Bertha couldn't queer?"

"Such as canned baked beans and celery?" asks Vee, chucklin'. "And yet,
if I stood by and read the directions to her--who knows?"

"Let's try her on the Piddies," I suggests.

Well, we did. And if the potatoes had been cooked a little more and the
roast a little less, it wouldn't have been so bad. The olives were all
right, even if Bertha did forget to serve 'em until she brought in the
ice cream. But then, the Piddies are used to little slips like that,
havin' lived so long out in Jersey.

"You see," explains Vee to me afterwards, "Bertha was a bit flurried
over her first dinner-party. She isn't much used to a gas oven, either.
Don't you think we might try another?"

"Sure!" says I. "What are friends for, anyway? How about askin' Mr. and
Mrs. Robert Ellins?"

"Oh, dear!" sighs Vee, lookin' scared. Then she is struck with a bright
idea. "I'll tell you: we will rehearse the next one the night before."

"Atta girl!" says I. "Swell thought."

It was while she and Bertha was strugglin' over the cook-book, and
gettin' advice from various sources, from housekeepin' magazines to the
janitor's wife, that this Leon Battou party shows up with his sob
hist'ry.

"Oh, Torchy!" Vee hails me with, as I come