To Bess it seemed extraordinary to improvise an ice box outside the window when there was a genuine one in the kitchen; but she was beginning to understand Miss Smith, and could not help admiring her adventurous spirit, which wished to live like Robinson Crusoe, always improvising, if not improving.
“The meat!” whispered Miss Smith. “It’s frozen fast! I can’t get it off the plate, or the plate off the shelf!”
But, alas, she did get her ice box off the nails, and down it went into the garden below.
“Never mind, my dear!” she said. “Don’t say anything about it; I’m always prepared for emergencies.”
So she closed the window, retired into[Pg 498] another room, and came back with a number of tins.
“Tom Tench!” she called. “Get ready! Dinner in ten minutes!”
It was, however, nearly nine o’clock before they dined. Miss Smith had trouble with her forest of electric cords, and never knew which things were turned on and which off, so that the concoctions which she believed to be cooling began to burn directly her back was turned, and the pots which she was anxiously expecting to boil would be found, after a long wait, to have been standing upon stoves absolutely cold.
Young Smith was a model of cheerful patience. He came in cold and hungry, and uncomplainingly remained cold and hungry for a long time. The professor was courteously serene through everything, and Bess and Angelina were unfailingly good-tempered; but Tom Tench was otherwise. He was silent all through the meal; and, after it had been eaten, and the ruins hidden behind a screen, he made himself felt. It was then that the bitter Tench-Gayle feud began.
“It’s darned cold!” he muttered, in a surly fashion.
“Bitter weather,” the professor agreed.