David flashed a brilliant smile at the waitress.
“You’re a nice little girl, Jennie,” he said, and tasted the steaming cup which she handed him. Then he made a wry face.
“Isn’t it good?” asked the girl, with a grieved droop of her full red lips. “I made it jus’s you said, with the egg an’ all, an’ it jus’ boiled up good once. I stood right over it for all o’ that nasty Sarah. She swatted me with her dish-towel, ’cause I wouldn’t——”
“It’s made well enough,” interrupted David; “but it’s a cheap brand of coffee, and—bring the coffee-pot here; will you?”
“The coffee-pot?”
“Yes. Bring it here; the one you make my coffee in.”
The girl disappeared kitchenward with a hasty rustling of her crisp blue gingham skirts. David leaned back in his chair and thrust both hands in his trousers pockets while he eyed the table service of coarse crockery and cheap glass with a cynical smile. Three or four flies hovered aimlessly about the plate of buttered toast, and one crawled into the half-filled cream jug where it buzzed helplessly, its wings spattered with the liquid.
“Damn!” muttered David, pushing back his chair and yawning. There were shrill voices in loud altercation in the not distant kitchen, the sound of a hard-shut door, and the waitress reappeared, red-cheeked and breathless, bearing a large black coffee-pot in her two hands held far in front of her.
“Here it is, Mr. Whitcomb,” she said. “That nasty ol’ cook was bound I shouldn’t bring it in ’ere. She threw dish-water on my clean apron. I could ’a’ killed her!”
She held the coffee-pot for his inspection and David lifted the lid, peered in, and sniffed disgustedly.