the depot.

"It's an awful thing, Hep! Our palates are weak from sampling different
styles of mashed potatoes.

"We had one last week who answered roll-call when you yelled Phyllis.

"Isn't that a peach of a handle for a kitchen queen with a map like the
Borough of The Bronx on a dark night?

"She came here well recommended--by herself. She said she knew how to
cook backwards.

"We believed her after the first meal, because that's how she cooked it.

"Phyllis was a very inventive girl. She could cook anything on earth or
in the waters underneath the earth, and she proved it by trying to mix
tenpenny nails with the baked beans.

"When Phyllis found there was no shredded oats in the house for
breakfast she changed the cover of the wash tub into sawdust and
sprinkled it with the whisk-broom, chopped fine.

"It wasn't a half bad breakfast food of the home-made kind, but every
time I took a drink of water the sawdust used to float up in my throat
and tickle me.

"The first and only day she was with us Phyllis squandered two dollars
worth of eggs trying to make a lemon meringue pie.

"She tried to be artistic with this, but one of the eggs was old and
nervous and it slipped.

"Uncle Peter asked Phyllis if she could cook some Hungarian goulash and
Phyllis screamed, 'No; my parents have been Swedes all their lives!'
Then she ran him across the lawn with the carving knife.

"Aunt Martha went in the kitchen to ask what was for dinner and Phyllis
got back at her, 'Im a woman, it is true, but I will show you that I can
keep a secret!'

"When the meal came on the table we were compelled to keep the secret
with her.

"It looked like Irish stew, tasted like clam chowder, and behaved like a
bad boy.

"On the second day it suddenly occurred to Phyllis that she was working,
so she handed in her resignation, handed Hank, the gardener, a jolt in
his cafe department, handed out a lot of unnecessary talk, and left us
flat.

"The next rebate we had in the kitchen was a colored man named James
Buchanan Pendergrast.

"James was all there is and carry four. He was one of the most careful
cooks that ever made faces at the roast beef.

"The evening he arrived we intended to have shad roe for dinner and
James informed us that that was where he lived.

"Eight o'clock came and no dinner. Then Aunt Martha went in the kitchen
to convince him that we were human beings with appetites.

"She found Careful James counting the roe