“No, my beloved,” returned Nyoda, “from the character and appearance of most of the inmates of the Widder Higgins’ establishment, I have been moved to refer to it as ‘The Rookery.’”
“Now,” said Gladys sternly, when the laughter over this title had subsided, “tell the ladies the real reason why you had to seek a new boarding place so abruptly.”
“I told you before,” said Nyoda, “that my venturesome landlady went to the Exposition and left me out in the cold.”
“That’s not the real reason,” said Gladys, severely. “If you don’t tell it immediately, I will!”
“I’ll tell it,” said Nyoda submissively, alarmed at this threat. “You see, it was this way,” she began in a pained, plaintive voice. “This Gladys woman over here came up to take supper with me last night—only she smelled the supper cooking in the kitchen and turned up her nose, whereupon I was moved with compassion to cook supper for her in my chafing-dish unbeknownst to the landlady, who has been known to frown on any attempts to compete with her table d’hôte.”
“I never!” murmured Gladys. “She invited me to a chafing-dish supper in the first place.”
“Well, as I was saying,” continued Nyoda, not heeding this interruption, “to save her from starvation I dragged out my chafing-dish and made shrimp wiggle and creamed peas, and we had a dinner fit for a king, if I do say it as shouldn’t. The crowning glory of the feast was a big onion which Gladys’s delicate appetite required as a stimulant. All went merry as a marriage bell until it came to the disposal of that onion after the feast was over, as there was more than half of it left. We didn’t dare take it down to the kitchen for fear the Widder would pounce on us for cooking in our rooms, and even my stout heart quailed at the thought of sleeping ferninst that fragrant vegetable. Suddenly I had an inspiration.” Here Nyoda paused dramatically.
“Yes,” broke in Gladys, impatient at her pause, “and she calmly chucked it out of the second story window into the street!”
“All would still have been mild and melodious,” continued Nyoda, in a solemn tone which enthralled her hearers, “if it hadn’t been for the fact that the fates had their fingers crossed at me last night. How otherwise could it have happened that at the exact moment when the onion descended the old bachelor missionary should have been prancing up the walk, coming to call on the Widder Higgins? Who but fate could have brought it about that that onion should bounce first on his hat, then on his nose, and then on his manly bosom?”
“And he never waited to see what hit him!” put in Gladys, for whom the recital was not going fast enough. “He ran as if he thought somebody had thrown a bomb at him.”