He heard someone coming down the hall, and at the same time a door in front opened and the laughter and noise of many merry voices reached him as he stood waiting on the doormat.
“Good evening, Mr. Tom—a merry Christmas,” said the maid, smilingly.
“Goo’ ebeneeg, Kadrina,” mumbled Tom, scowling as he looked towards the front room whence came the merry-making.
“Don’ dell anyone I’m here, but dell Modder I’m sig and wand do see her ride away,” explained Tom, snuffingly.
“You got a bad cold in your nose, ain’t chew?” said Katrina, sympathetically.
“No!” shouted Tom, furiously. “I god’da case ob double pneumonia!”
Katrina jumped at the unexpected shout, and hurried to the front room to call her mistress. Instead of remembering to keep Tom’s presence a secret, she whispered loud enough for Polly to hear:
“Mr. Tom jus’ come in an’ his nose is red as a beet. His eyes is runnin’, too, an’ he needs a atmosizer to blow in his head, to clear out the snuffles so’s he kin open his lungs, widdout keepin’ his mouth open all th’ time.”
Instead of fainting with horror as Tom had pictured she might, Polly laughed at Katrina’s description, and Mrs. Latimer smiled and turned to her guests to excuse herself, by saying:
“Tom just came in, poor boy, with a stuffy cold in his head. I’ll put his feet in mustard and see that he drinks a hot glass of doctored lemonade, then I’ll be back.”