"Isn't it a sign of the times when a child of his age doesn't know a coffee-pot when he sees one?" Rufe asked, as he stood in the doorway and absorbed lots of space. When Galileo, or whoever it was, made his famous remark about nobody being able to occupy more than one space at a time he had never seen a man in the kitchen before breakfast.
"I think it speaks well for his up-bringing," he continued (Rufe's I mean, not Galileo). "It shows how entirely we are on the water wagon here at this house."
"Lemme play with the coffee-pot," Rufus, junior, was insisting, dangerous signs appearing around the corner of his mouth. Cousin Eunice, who is observant, noticed these signs. It always gives her a spell of indigestion for him to have a crying spell before breakfast.
"Now listen, son," she said, handing the vessel over to him with a dubious look, "you must be very careful with the coffee-pot. Father went up himself yesterday and bought it for mother, because we are going to have so much company this afternoon that the other pot won't hold enough. So you just sit down on a pile of sofa pillows to play with it, then you can't drop it and make ugly dents in the pretty, shiny thing."
This arrangement proved so satisfactory that breakfast was finished and eaten before Waterloo could be prevailed upon to break his fast. A pocket full of marbles poured headlong into the new-fangled coffee-pot had added very materially to its success as a plaything, and the music of this kept him engaged for at least half an hour after the cook finally showed up and took the reins of the kitchen work out of our relieved hands.
Cousin Eunice then went into the dining-room to give another look at the piles of silver, china and napery that are considered necessary accompaniments to civilized eating in public.
"Almonds, olives, mints," she said, touching the glass and silver dishes which were placed in a row on the sideboard. "Oh, isn't there always a gala feeling about eating out of wedding presents? And I'm going to use every pretty dish I have this afternoon."
"Is Mrs. Barnette such a big personage, then?" I inquired. The "Scribblers' Club" was going to meet with Mrs. Clayborne, and I had heard much of the visiting lioness just mentioned. Cousin Eunice is the kind of woman who takes her parties hard, and before the actual date of one, everything in the house, from Waterloo's scalp to the back kitchen shelves, is put in apple-pie order—as if a visit from the health officer were impending.
"Big?" Cousin Eunice was going over the row of dishes again, to make sure that she was going to be able to use them all. "Why, she speaks seven different languages, and has all her underclothes suspended from her shoulders."
"Mercy! Then it will take every piece of silver and fine glass you can muster to offset that, I'm sure."