e
round. He wouldn't come in till the letters were finished, certainly
not for an hour, and by that time Allerton would be.... He almost
smiled at the old man's probable consternation on finding him so
before the middle of the day. Any time would be bad enough; but in the
high forenoon....

He went to a cabinet which was said to have found its way via
Bordentown from the furnishings of Queen Caroline Murat. Having opened
it he took out a bottle and a glass. On the label of the bottle was a
kilted Highlander playing on the pipes. A siphon of soda was also in
the cabinet, but he left it there. What he had to do would be done
more quickly without its mitigation.

* * * * *

While Allerton was making these preparations Judson Flack, in pajamas
and slippers, was standing in his toy kitchen, looking helplessly at a
small gas stove. It was the hour in the middle of the morning at which
he was accustomed to be waked with the information that his coffee and
eggs were ready. The forenoon being what he called his slack time he
found the earlier part of it most profitably used for sleep.

"Curse the girl!"

The adjuration was called forth by the fact that he didn't know where
anything was, or how anything should be done. From the simple
expedient of going for his breakfast to one of the cheap restaurants
with which he was familiar he was cut off by the fact of an unlucky
previous night. He simply didn't have the bones. This was not to say
that he was penniless, but that in view of more public expenses later
in the day it would be well for him to economize where economy was so
obvious. He never had an appetite in the morning anyway. With
irregular eating and drinking all through the evening and far toward
daylight, he found a cup of coffee and an egg....

It was easy, he knew, to make the one and boil the other, but he was
out of practice. He couldn't remember doing anything of the sort since
the days before he married Letty's mother. Even then he had never
tried this new-fangled thing, the gas stove, so that besides being out
of practice he was at a loss.

"Curse the girl!"

The resources of the kitchen being few exploration didn't take him
long. He found bread, butter, milk that had turned sour, the usual
condiments, some coffee in a canister, and a single egg. If he could
only light the confounded gas stove....

A small white handle offering itself for experiment, he turned it