“I used to do all the cooking when the Owl Club went camping,” he announced, entirely for Annie’s benefit.
“In Blakeville?” asked Annie, with a grin.
“Yes, in Blakeville,” he exploded, almost dropping the cigarette from his lips into the skillet. His blue eyes flashed ominously. Annie, unused to the turning of the worm, caught her breath.
Suddenly obsessed by the idea that he was master in his own house, he began strutting about the kitchen, taking mental note of the things that needed attention, with a view to reproving Bridget when she came back to the 21 fold. He burnt his fingers trying to straighten the stovepipe, smelt of the dish-cloths to see if they were greasy, rattled the pans and bethought himself of the eggs just in the nick of time. In some haste and embarrassment he removed the skillet from the fire just as Annie came out of the pantry with the bread and the coffee can.
“Where’s the platter?” he demanded, holding the skillet at arm’s length. “They’re fried.”
“They’ll be stone cold,” said she, “waiting for the coffee to boil. You ain’t got any water boiling.”
“I thought, perhaps, we’d better have milk,” he said, gathering his wits.
To his surprise—and to her own, for that matter—she said, “Very good, sir,” and repaired to the icebox for the dairy bottles. He was still holding the skillet when she returned. She was painfully red in the face.
Phoebe eyed the subsequent preparations for the meal with an increasing look of sullenness in her quaint little face. She was rather a pretty child. You would say of her, if you saw her in the street, “What a sweet child!” just 22 as you would say it about the next one you met.
Her father, taking note of her manner, paused in the act of removing his apron.