CHAPTER I
Her Great Idea
“Jack, Jack, I have had a truly wonderful inspiration!” cried Pam as she came dashing down the stairs like a whirlwind.
Unfortunately Barbara, the little maid-of-all-work, was at that moment toiling upwards with the soup tureen and a pile of plates on a tray. She was near the top, too, and very much out of breath. She had no strength to stand against the violent impact, but went down before it, being brought up in a heap at the turn of the stairs while tray, tureen, and plates went careering to the bottom, accompanied by a stream of soup.
“Now you’ve done it!” exclaimed Jack, with an ominous growl in his voice, as, leaning on his stick, he came limping from the kitchen to survey the ruins.
“Oh, haven’t I just!” cried Pam in heartfelt contrition. Then she gasped: “Whatever will Mother say?”
The afflicted Barbara, who still lay at the bend of the stairway where she had fallen, burst into noisy crying at this. She had been dismissed from her last place for ravages among the crockery, and if she had to leave the house of Mrs. Walsh for a similar cause, where would her character be?
“Dry up!” burst out Jack impatiently. “We have too much moisture here already by the look of it.” As he spoke he hopped aside to let a rivulet of soup go past him. Such good soup it had been too! The savoury odours steamed up under his nose, and as he was desperately hungry the waste was all the more exasperating.
Just at this moment the green baize door at the top of the stairs opened smartly, and Greg called down: “Jack, Mother says don’t let Barbara bring up the soup for another ten minutes, because Colonel Seaford has ’phoned to say that he can’t be here till then.”
“What luck!” exclaimed Pam. “Come along, Barbara, we can make a fresh lot of soup in ten minutes, and we will serve it in a salad bowl and porridge plates. Dear me, nothing is ever so bad that it might not be worse!”