sir," he said, "but if you could tell me
what it is you want, I would tell the cook. She has a peculiar nature,
Jane-Ellen has, sir; has had from a child; and, if you would forgive the
liberty, I believe it would be best for you not to interview her
yourself."

Tucker looked up quickly.

"Why, what do you mean?" asked Crane.

"She is very timid, sir, very easily affected by criticism--"

"Good heavens, I don't want to criticize her!" cried Crane. "I only want
to tell her how highly I think of her."

"In my opinion, Burton," Tucker began, when an incident occurred that
entirely changed the situation.

A very large elderly gray cat walked into the room, with the step of one
who has always been welcome, and approaching Tucker's chair as if it
were a familiar place, he jumped suddenly upon his knee and began to
purr in his face.

Tucker, under the most favorable circumstances, was not at his best in
the early morning. Later in the day he might have borne such an
occurrence with more calm, but before ten o'clock he was like a man
without armor against such attacks. He sprang to his feet with an
exclamation, and drove the cat ahead of him from the room, returning
alone an instant later.

"It is outrageous," he said, when he returned, "that our lives are to be
rendered miserable by that filthy beast."

"Sit down, Tuck," said Burton, who was talking about wines with the
butler. "My life is not rendered in the least miserable. The champagne,
Smithfield, ought to go on the ice--"

Tucker, however, could not distract his mind so quickly from the thought
of the outrage to which he had just been subjected.

"I must really ask you, Burton," he said, "before you go on with your
orders, to insist that that animal be drowned, or at least sent out of
the house--"

"Oh, I beg, sir, that you won't do that," broke in Smithfield. "The cat
belongs to the cook, and I really could not say, sir, what she might do,
if the cat were put out of the house."

"We seem to hear a vast amount about what this cook likes and doesn't
like," said Tucker, dribbling a little more hot milk into his half cup
of coffee. "The house, I believe, is not run entirely for her
convenience."

It is possible that Crane had already been rendered slightly inimical to
his friend's point of view, but he was saved the trouble of answering
him, for at this moment the cook herself entered the room, in what no
one present doubted for an instant was a towering r