Letitia reddened and seemed to forget her present satisfaction in the thought of her recent humiliation. She went on: "Fortunately, I was not the only one who needed a cook. At least fifty ladies were there, looking strangely desperate. One of them spoke to me, most impertinently, I thought. She was a stout matron and she said to me, very rudely: 'Is this your first time in hell?' I didn't answer her, and she smiled and passed on. I heard her tell the proprietress of the office that she had a bicycle with a coaster brake, that she was willing, if necessary, to place at the disposal of her cook, but that, personally, she would prefer a cook who played the piano. I also heard her say that she, herself, would do all the work for two hours each morning while cook practised."
"Was it a lunatic asylum, or an intelligence office?" I asked, as I knotted my tie.
"Oh, it really was an intelligence office," Letitia replied seriously. "I thought that I must have made a mistake at first, and arrived at a wrong address. It was all so odd. The ladies seemed to be cooks and the cooks seemed to be ladies. Really, Archie"—with a laugh—"it was quite like a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, without music. I heard one lady tell Mrs. Jones, the proprietress, that she was quite willing to allow her husband to take cook to the theater once a week, but she stipulated that cook should not ask to go to the Metropolitan Opera House on Wagner nights."
"Come, Letitia," I said impatiently, "I dare say you mean to be funny, but I do hope, dear, that you are not going to develop a sense of humor. You know my views on that subject."
"But, Archie, this is all true. It is, honest Injun. I am as much mystified as you are. I thought I was dreaming, or at the theater. I couldn't realize that it was genuine. Fortunately for me, Mrs. Jones attended to me immediately. Just after I had heard the conversation about the Metropolitan Opera House on Wagner nights, an old, rather melancholy looking person came in. Mrs. Jones jumped up and said: 'Here's the very thing for you, Mrs. Fairfax.' And before I knew it, I was on my way home with a cook who had been with the Vanderbilts. Her name, Archie, is Mrs. Potzenheimer. She's German."
"So I should judge," I murmured. "Potzenheimer! Good gracious, Letitia!"
"What does the name matter, you silly boy? That which we call a Potzenheimer, etcetera. Think of our luck, dear. On the way home, I remembered Aunt Julia's suggestion always to ask for references. I had quite forgotten all about it, stupid-like. Mrs. Potzenheimer looked very sad and weary, poor soul. She told me that Mrs. Vanderbilt would be delighted to give her a reference, but that at present she was in England, visiting the Duchess of Marlborough."
I'm not a snob, not a bit of one. I'm a democrat to the roots of my hair. Still, as this reflected glory shed itself upon me, I felt a strange sense of elation.
"Which of the Vanderbilts was it?" I asked.
"How provoking you are, Archie!" exclaimed Letitia impatiently. "Isn't any Vanderbilt good enough for us—to get a cook from? Suppose it were Alfred, or Reginald, or William K. Vanderbilt. What difference does it make? I was so overjoyed that I felt positively pleased to hear that Mrs. Vanderbilt was with the Duchess of Marlborough. If she had been here I should have deemed it my duty to call upon her for a reference, and—you know what these people are—it might have been a bad one. Absolutely, I'd sooner have a bad Vanderbilt cook, than a good ordinary, plain affair."