"What are we eating, Chitty?"
"Sausages and fried tomatoes, sir," he answered with the customary salute.
"Mind you do enough for the lot of us," I instructed him.
"Very good, sir."
I carried a deal table into the dining room, for the regular furniture was mostly in a chaotic pyramid on the pavement in front. Helen found knives, forks, and plates. The housemaid appeared to be paralyzed by circumstances. She was of little or no assistance. So it was that, amid gales of laughter from Helen, we sat down to the first meal under our own roof.
"The devil of it all is," I philosophized to her, between bites, "that nothing in this world ever turns out as one has imagined it will. Now, the number of times we have pictured ourselves eating our first dinner in our own home—"
"But what oceans more fun it is, like this," Helen interrupted.
"There is a great deal in your point of view, lady with the nice eyes," I agreed, carving her a wedge of bread from a household loaf. "What do you think, littlest Helen?" I added, turning to the baby, who sat, a solemn spectator, on nurse's lap.
"Now, Ted, please don't stir the baby up when she's being good," Helen cautioned. She always said that if I approached the child.
"When," I asked with mock irony, "will my daughter reach such an age of discretion that I may be permitted to converse with her?"