But the door had not closed before I had had a fleeting glimpse of a figure bent over the stove—a short thickset figure in a sailor’s trousers and a sleeveless shirt.
“Something smells awfully good,” Eve said by way of relieving the embarrassment which seemed to have seized us all. “We came over to tell you about Michael,” she added. “His case has been dismissed.”
“You don’t say—well, that’s fine!” The Captain motioned us to seats and began fumbling for his pipe. “Glad you dropped in; tell me all about it.”
While we told the story for the second time that morning, I was conscious that the Captain’s eyes strayed every now and then toward the closed door as if he were fearful that it might open. All the time we talked the clatter of pans and the sound of sizzling fat reached us and once I distinctly heard a raucous cough.
It was after a particularly loud crash as if some large tin receptacle had fallen to the floor that the Captain remarked with a nervous chuckle, “Got me a new cook. He thinks he’s in a ship’s galley, I guess! Ha, ha!”
“It must be awfully hot cooking on a day like this,” Hattie May remarked guilelessly. “I should think he’d want the door open.”
The Captain shook his head positively. “Not a bit of it. He likes it hot—used to it. Tropics, you know; the hotter, the better! Why, would you believe it, I actually had to go up attic last night and bring him down a winter blanket? Said he had a chill!”
“Really!” exclaimed Hattie May. “The poor fellow!”
It was at this moment that the Captain’s fear was realized. The door did open but it was only a crack, just enough to let out a strong odor of frying grease borne on a cloud of smoke and, with it, the form of Daisy June, her tail erect and her fur on end.
“Jumpin’ Jericho!” exploded the Captain jumping to his feet. But before he could reach the door, it had slammed again, while the kitten streaked across the grass and disappeared under a bush.