timidly, applying a match to a geometrical pattern of holes. He jumped
back as from an exploding cannon.

"Curse the girl!"

Having found the way, however, the next attempt was more successful.
Soon he had two geometrical patterns of holes burning in steady blue
buttons of flame. On the one he placed the coffee-pot into which he
had turned a pint of water and a cupful of coffee; on the other a
saucepan half full of water containing his egg. This being done he
retired to the bathroom for the elements of a toilet.

"Curse the girl!"

Washing, shaving, turning up his mustache with the little curling
tongs, he observed with self-pity his increasing haggardness. He
observed it also with dismay. Looks were as important to him as to an
actress. His role being youth, high spirits, and the devil-may-care,
the least trace of the wearing out would do for him. He had noticed
some time ago that he was beginning to show fatal signs, which had the
more emphatically turned his thoughts to the provision Letty might
prove for his old age.

"Curse the girl!"

It was cursing the girl which reminded him that he had allowed more
than the necessary time for his breakfast to be ready for consumption.
Hurrying back to the kitchen he found the egg gracefully dancing as
the water boiled. He fished it out with a spoon and took it in his
hand, but he didn't keep it there. Dashing it to the table, whence it
crashed upon the floor, he positively screamed.

"Curse the girl!"

He cursed her now licking and sucking the tips of his fingers and
examining them to see if they were scalded. No such calamity having
occurred he took up the coffee pot, leaving the mashed egg where it
lay. Ladling a spoonful of sugar into a cup, and adding the usual
milk, he poured in the coffee, which became a muddy dark brown
mixture, with what appeared to be a porridge of seeds floating on the
top. One sip, which induced a diabolical grimace, and he threw the
beverage at the opposite wall as if it was a man he meant to insult.

"Curse the girl!"

The appeal to the darker powers being accompanied now by a series of
up-to-date terms of objurgation, the mere act of utterance, mental or
articulate, churned him to a frenzy. Seizing the coffee pot which he
had replaced on the gas stove he hurled it too against the wall. It
struck, splathered the hideous liquor over a hideous calsomining which
had once been blue, and fell to the floor like a living thing knocked
inse