At this his head appeared at the head of the cellar stairs.
“Watch the cereal, please,” he said, “and see that it doesn’t burn.”
“Like King Alfred?”
“Not too much like him, please, for that pitiful little dab of food is about all we have to eat.”
When he was gone Christine advanced toward the stove and looked at the cereal—looked at it closely, but it seemed to her to be but little benefited by her attention. Presently she discovered on a shelf beside the laundry clock a pinkish purple paper novel, called: “The Crime of the Season.” Its cover depicted a man in a check suit and side-whiskers looking on in astonishment at the removal of a drowned lady in full evening dress from a very minute pond. Christine opened it, and was so fortunate as to come full upon the crime. She became as completely absorbed in it as the laundress had been before her.
She was recalled to the more sordid but less criminal surroundings of real life by a strong pungent smell. She sniffed, and then her heart suddenly sank as she realized that the cereal was burning. She recognized a peculiarly disagreeable flavor about which she had often scolded the cook, thinking such carelessness on the part of one of her employees to be absolutely inexcusable.
She ran to the head of the cellar stairs. “Mr. Riatt!” she called.
He was now shaking down the furnace, and the noise completely drowned her voice. “Oh, dear, what a noisy man he is,” she thought and when he had finished, she called again: “Mr. Riatt!”
This time he heard. “What is it?” he answered.
“Mr. Riatt, what shall I do? The cereal is burning terribly.”