“Mary says that an hour after we left cook got a telegram from New York saying that her brother was dying, and she had to go right off.”
“I thought that brother was dying last week?”
“No; that was her mother’s brother, he got well. This is another person entirely.”
“Naturally,” snapped Thaddeus. “But next time we get a cook let’s have one whose relatives are all dead, or in the old country, where they can’t be reached. I’m tired of this business.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be cross with me about it, Thad,” said Bessie, with a teary look in her eyes. “I have to put up with a great deal more of it than you have, only you never know of it. Why, I’ve cooked one-half of my own luncheons in the last month.”
“And the dinners, too, I’ll wager,” growled Thaddeus.
“No; she’s always got home for dinner heretofore.”
“Well, we’ll keep a record-book for her, too, then. And we’ll be generous with her. We’ll allow her just as I was allowed in college—twenty-five per cent. in cuts. If she has twenty-five and a fifth per cent. she goes.”
“I don’t think I understand,” said Bessie.
“Well, we’ll put it this way: There are thirty days in a month. That means ninety meals a month. If she cooks sixty-seven and a half of them she can stay; if she fails to cook the other twenty-two and a half she can stay; but woe be unto her if she slips up by even so little as a millionth part of the sixty-eighth!”