“I thought we might help this so as there would be no delays after we had dispatched that talkative fat person in the blanket,” he said. “I hope you will like it. My mother used to call it ‘piddling.’ It was a wash-day dessert and we always had it Mondays, made from Sunday’s cake.”
Elinor busied herself serving the wash-day dessert into china saucers. It was made of slices of cake soaked in fruit juice and spread with jam.
“When there is cream in the house, it adds of course,” observed the doctor with some pride over his success as a cook.
“The flavor’s delicious,” observed Miss Campbell, testing a small piece daintily on the edge of her spoon.
“It’s bully,” exclaimed Ben.
The doctor was really vain over his efforts.
“And I made it from memory,” he informed them, “without any recipe. I call that pretty good for a first attempt.”
They wondered if he had ever done anything in his profession that gave him as much childish delight as making this simple dessert of his boyhood.
After a brief silence, broken only by the tinkle of spoons against saucers, the campers around the table glanced at each other guiltily. Except for the portions reserved for the two cooks, there was not a crumb of piddling left.
“Better hide the plates and cover the dish,” said the doctor in a conspirator’s whisper. “It’s enough to provoke them into a mutiny. Time enough to break the news after they have eaten their mock turtle.”