"Nobody wants you to dare anything," flared out her mother. "What the boy says sounds sensible. He says he has fixed them for the soldiers at the hospital. I want him to fix one for me."
"When shall I come?" Quin asked.
"Come nothing. You'll stay and do it now. Telephone the factory that I am keeping you here for the morning. Isobel, order him whatever he needs. And now get out of here, both of you; I want to take a nap."
Thus it was that, an hour later, the new colored butler was carrying the papers back to Bartlett " Bangs's, and Mr. Randolph's new secretary was sawing wood in Madam Bartlett's cellar. It was a humble beginning, but he whistled jubilantly as he worked. Already he saw himself climbing, by brilliant and spectacular deeds, to a dazzling pinnacle of security in the family's esteem.
Madam Bartlett's accident had far-reaching results. For fifty years her firm hand had brooked no slightest interference with the family steering-wheel, and now that it was removed the household machinery came to a standstill. She who had "ridden the whirlwind and directed the storm" now found herself ignominiously laid low. Instead of rising with the dawn, primed for battle in club committee, business conclave, or family council, she lay on her back in a darkened room, a prisoner to pain. The only vent she had for her pent-up energy was in hourly tirades against her daughters for their inefficiency, the nurses for their incompetency, the doctors for their lack of skill, and the servants for their disobedience.
The one person who, in any particular, found favor with her these days was her son's new secretary. Every Saturday, when Quinby Graham stopped on his way to the bank with various papers for her to sign, he was plied with questions and intrusted with various commissions. A top sergeant was evidently just what Madam had been looking for all her life—one trained to receive orders and execute them. All went well until one day when Quin refused to smuggle in some forbidden article of diet; then the steam-roller of her wrath promptly passed over him also.
He waited respectfully until her breath and vocabulary were alike exhausted, then said good-humoredly:
"I used to board with a woman up in Maine that had hysterics like that. They always made her feel a lot better. Don't you want me to shift that pulley a bit? You don't look comfortable."
Madam promptly ordered him out of the room. But next day she made an excuse to send for him, and actually laughed when he stepped briskly up to the bed, saluted smartly, and impudently asked her how her grouch was.