"Yes, and then have someone else get it!"
"No one else could get it, if you understood it best!" he said impatiently.
"That shows just about how much you know about the office!" Susan retorted, vexed at his lack of sympathy. And she returned to her pudding, with the real cream of the day's news yet untold.
A few moments later Billy was excused, for a struggle with German in the night school, and departed with a joyous, "Auf wiedersehen, Fraulein Brown!" to Susan. Such boarders as desired were now drinking their choice between two dark, cool fluids that might have been tea, or might have been coffee, or might have been neither.
"I am going a little ahead of you and Georgie, Ma," said Virginia, rising, "for I want to see Mamie Evans about tickets for Saturday."
"Say, listen, Jin, I'm not going to-night," said Miss Georgie, hastily, and with a little effort.
"Why, you said you were, Georgie!" the older sister said reproachfully. "I thought you'd bring Ma."
"Well, I'm not, so you thought wrong!" Georgie responded airily.
"Somebody coming to see you, dear?" asked her mother.
"I don't know--maybe." Miss Georgie got up, brushing the crumbs from her lap.