“How did you do it, Miss Lewis?” inquired the stately senior, who was Mary’s guest, wiping her eyes and gasping for breath as she spoke.
“It’s perfectly simple,” drawled Roberta indifferently. “The head is my black silk petticoat. I painted on the features, because the children like to have me do it at home, and it’s convenient to be ready. The arms are a broom-handle, stuck through the sleeves of this old coat, which is buttoned around my waist.”
“And now you’re going to do the Bandersnatch, aren’t you?” inquired the senior craftily, perceiving that the other side of the petticoat was decorated with curious red spots.
“I–how did you–oh, no,” said Roberta, blushing furiously, and stuffing the telltale petticoat under a convenient pillow. “I don’t know why I brought the things for this. I never meant to do it up here. I–I hope you weren’t bored. I just happened to think of it, and Eleanor couldn’t sing forever, and that fudge—”
“That fudge won’t cook,” broke in Betty in tragic tones. “It doesn’t thicken at all, and it’s half-past nine this minute. What shall I do?”
Everybody crowded around the chafing-dish, giving advice and suggesting unfailing remedies. But none of them worked.
“And there’s nothing else but tea and chocolate,” wailed Adelaide.
“But you can all have both,” said Betty bravely, “and you’ve forgotten the crackers, Adelaide. I’ll pass them while you and Katherine go for more cups.”
“And you can send the fudge round to-morrow,” suggested Mary Brooks consolingly. “It’s quite the thing, you know. Don’t imagine that your chafing-dish is the only one that’s too slow for the ten-o’clock rule.”
Betty insisted upon sitting up to finish the fudge, but she ended by getting up before breakfast the next morning to cook it on Mrs. Chapin’s stove.