"Oh, no, little Marie," said her husband. "You ought to ask the little young ladies in. They are not street children, don't you see?" Mina's magnificent clothes evidently made an impression on him.
Mrs. Berg mumbled something about its being all the same to her what sort of people we were, but Mr. Berg had already opened the door and respectfully asked us to walk in.
It was as hot as a bake-oven in the sitting-room, and so stuffy and thick with tobacco smoke that I thought I should smother behind my mask. Mr. Berg bowed and bowed and set out three chairs for us in the middle of the room. Now we had planned at home that we would use only P-speech while mumming, for then no one would know us.
"May I ask where these three elegant ladies come from?" asked Mr. Berg.
Massa undertook to answer, but she was never very clever at P-speech and she got all mixed up:
"From-prom. Fan-tan-pan—pi-ta—sa-si p-p-p——" she stammered, in a hopeless tangle, while Mina and I were ready to burst with laughter.
"Bless us! These must be foreigners from some very distant land,—they speak such a curious language. You must treat them with something, Marie."
Marie didn't appear very willing to treat us to anything, but she went over to a corner cupboard and brought out a few cookies,—pale, baked-to-death "poor man's cookies." They looked poor, indeed! I shuddered before I stuck a piece into my mouth.
To eat with a mask on, when the mouth is no wider than the slit in a savings-bank, has its difficulties, I can tell you. The little I did get in tasted of camphor. Mrs. Berg must have kept her medicines in the same closet with the cakes.
"Perhaps the little ladies would like something more," said Mr. Berg.