“Now don’t look solemn and sigh over the wild extravagance of all good Bohemians, Betty dear. If you feel that the Tally-ho can’t afford the desk just now, why, Mrs. Bob Enderby is crazy about it, and she’ll give the firm exactly twice what I paid. Get little Mary Brooks to bidding against her, and we shan’t have to worry over dull times.
“I am sending this with the desk, because my Literary Career takes all the postage stamps I can afford,—and then some. Dick Blake says that writing is exactly like painting. You’ve got to learn how. He calls my stories ‘beginner’s daubs—promising, but daubs.’ I’ve talked to a lot of other discouraging people, and I’ve got hundreds of plans, and several inspirations for B. W. & Co., so I’m coming back to-morrow to settle down for what Katherine calls a little spell of work.”
“Goodness, but I shall be glad to see her and talk things over!” Betty said to herself, and looked up to find Mary Brooks standing in the door, smiling in her vague, near-sighted fashion.
“Oh, it is you,” she said, as Betty hurried to meet her. “Are you all by yourself? Where are the members of the ‘Why-Get-Up-to-Breakfast Club’?”
Betty laughed and then looked sober. “It’s almost as nice a name as the ‘Merry Hearts,’ isn’t it? They’ve stopped coming here lately. I wish I knew why.”
“Give them buckwheat griddle-cakes,” advised Mary promptly. “Cuyler has nothing but wheat ones. Tell Lucile to tell everybody that yours are heaps nicer. What’s that in the crate?”
Betty explained, and Mary, who adored old writing-desks and had been hunting for years for one just to her liking, pulled off her gloves in great excitement and helped unpack the desk, move it into a sunny alcove between the front door and a window, and hunt for the secret drawer.
“It’s exactly what I want,” she declared rapturously, after they had spent half an hour without finding any trace of the recipe for Aunt Martha’s cake. “I’ll give you ten dollars more than your Mrs. Bob offered. But you mustn’t sell it to either of us, Betty. A secret drawer is a splendid tea-room feature. It suggests all kinds of romantic mysteries.”
Betty nodded. “Of course, I should just love to have it here, but we can’t afford it. We haven’t done a bit well lately, Mary.”
“Try the buckwheat griddle-cakes,” Mary called over her shoulder, as she hurried off to meet her husband at the end of his eleven o’clock class.