Finding that I could not prevent her, I hurried down the hall to discover the Angel looking wildly for a place of escape—still with his hat on. I motioned him into the bathroom, and his coat-tails disappeared therein, just as Mary loomed into view.
It took her a full quarter of an hour to open that bed, for nothing would do but she must unhook me. And all that time my thoughts were on the cream puffs. I did hope that Aubrey would have sense enough to put them on the wash-stand.
Finally I got rid of Mary, and released the Angel. He clanked as he came in, but that was two pint bottles of beer.
I locked the door, and then he unloaded. Besides the beer and cream puffs, he had four devilled crabs and two dill pickles, four club sandwiches, some Roquefort cheese, and some Bent biscuits.
He was obliged to make one more dangerous pilgrimage to the front hall to slam the door and hang up his hat and coat, otherwise Mary would have gone out after him. We have such a competent cook.
Finally we sat down and gorged on that impossible mixture. We had only Aubrey's pocket-knife, a paper-cutter, and a button-hook to eat with, and rather than to stop and wash out his shaving-cup we drank out of the bottles.
We ate until we felt the need of dyspepsia tablets, but still there was some left. This Aubrey did up in a neat package, we raised the window, turned out the lights, and threw it far, far out into the night. We listened and heard it fall in a neighbour's back yard.
Now, if we had stopped there, all would have been well, but Fate tempted us in the person of a vile and nasty little curly white dog, with a pink skin and a blue ribbon around her neck, whose mistress used to lead her up and down in front of our apartment-house every evening. She was a very nasty little dog, badly spoiled, and we had longed to kick her for six months, but her mistress was always there and we couldn't.
But oh, joy! On this particular night, she was in the back yard all alone, yapping and whining to get indoors. Clearly this was the best place for the empty beer bottles.
"Don't hit her, Aubrey. Just aim for the cement walk. That will scare her to death."