“I don’t see,” I weakly exclaimed when my wife had closed the kitchen door, “why she put them off on us. Why didn’t she trade her brats off for antiques?”
Silvia eyed the check wistfully. I could read the unspoken thought that here, perhaps, was the opportunity for our much-desired trip.
“No, Silvia,” I answered quickly, “not for any number of blank checks or vacation trips shall you have the care and annoyance of those wild Comanches.”
“I know what I’ll do!” she exclaimed suddenly. “I’ll go right down to the intelligence office and get anything in the shape of a maid and put her in charge of the Polydore caravansary with double wages and every night out and any other privileges she requests.”
This seemed a sane and sensible arrangement, and I wended my way to my 55 office feeling that we were out of the woods.
When I returned home at noon, I found that we had only exchanged the woods for water––and deep water at that.
I beheld a strange sight. Silvia sat by our bedroom window twittering soft, cooing nonsensical nothings to Diogenes, who was clasped in her arms, his flushed little face pressed close to her shoulder.
“He’s been quite ill, Lucien. I was frightened and called the doctor. He said it was only the slight fever that children are subject to. He thought with good care that he’d be all right in a few days.”
“Did you succeed in getting a cook to go to the Polydores?” I asked anxiously. “You’ll need a nurse to go there, too, to take care of Diogenes.”
She looked at me reproachfully and rebukingly.