"Stop it, Archie. Now, stop it. You mustn't be harsh and unreasonable. What happened to-night will probably never happen again. Would you like me if I were hard-hearted, and cold-blooded? Think of Nellie as though she were your own grandmother."
"Why should I, Letitia?" I asked impatiently, wound up again. "I've been trying to think of her as my cook. That is all I bargained to do. It is not likely that I should engage my own grandmother—"
"Oh, you are so cross—so cross!" sighed Letitia; "I have never seen you so disagreeable. After all, Archie, you are a great big baby. You are vexed because I left you alone for a few moments."
"An hour and a half!"
"An hour and a half? Was it really so long? It couldn't have been. Well, perhaps it was. Anyway, I'm glad you missed me. It is a consolation. I missed you, dear. It wasn't at all amusing waiting on a lachrymose old woman, plying her with drink and tucking her up in bed. It was really most objectionable, and I'm extremely lacking as a ministering angel. I can't minister for a cent. But I can try, can't I? And—let's be as quiet as we can, Archie, and not disturb the poor thing."
[CHAPTER VII]
Dismal, dreary, depressing, are adjectives that scarcely qualify the week that ensued. They do not express the subtile, underlying something that made my home almost unendurable. There was a sense of impending crisis that was horrible. Mrs. Potzenheimer's ailments became more numerous, varied, and pungent. My whisky bills were absolutely menacing. Letitia developed quite a connoisseur's estimate of spirituous liquors, and the various brands of rye and Scotch, as well as of Old Tom and Holland in the gin list, seemed to displace her student's appreciation of Cicero and Ovid as light literature.
On three occasions we dined at a restaurant, while Mrs. Potzenheimer went to bed. We generally spoke in whispers, and once, when I whistled Hiawatha, Letitia nearly grew hysterical. This was not due to the fact that Hiawatha happened to be extremely hackneyed, but to the circumstance that Nellie was trying to take a nap. How I hated it all! Letitia was pale and looked worn, for she never went out. Mrs. Potzenheimer was too infirm to open the door when the bell rang and Letitia insisted upon doing it herself. The dinners of which we partook at home were invariably composed of stew and rice pudding. They palled. Nellie, when remonstrated with (and not by Letitia), explained that the Duchess of Marlborough had been so partial to stew that she had practically lived upon it, and what was good enough for Her Grace of Marlborough was good enough, she thought—etcetera. At the end of the week the mere thought of stew sickened me. It was a subject that I detested to mention and an object that I loathed to see before me. Mrs. Potzenheimer wept just as frequently. I believe she wept tears of whisky and gin. I could have sworn, once or twice, that I saw Old Tom trickling down her cheeks.