The morning found him up early, having received an inspiration about breakfast, before going to bed. He would cook some rice! The baker’s man would come with hot rolls, which he had ordered the day before, and with the strawberries (which he heard the grocer’s boy bringing even now) coffee, and eggs, he would breakfast like a king. Also, he would bring Ed Nash home to dinner, and to stay all night, for spend another evening by himself he would not--if he could help it.
After a careful toilet Mr. Brown began a search for the rice, rightly judging that it would require longer to cook than coffee or eggs. That was premeditated intellect. What followed was neither premeditated nor--strictly speaking--intellect, for when it came to a matter of judgment regarding quantity, he simply hadn’t any; any judgment, I mean; the quantity was there--so far as the rice was concerned--and with a hasty “I’ll be sure to cook enough, so I can have some left for griddle cakes,” he washed a quart and put it on to boil in a tiny farina kettle, with just enough water to keep it from sticking, while he looked after the other things.
Something ailed that rice. That was certain; and as he looked at the hard, shiny grains after having put the coffee and eggs to boil, in real systematic shape, he brought his great, massive, masculine intellect to bear on the rice and its nature. “It needs more water”--and he covered it, feeling encouraged at the evident effect of mind over matter, and proceeded to hull the strawberries and give them a liberal powdering with sugar.
Then Mr. Brown looked at the rice again. Dry and hard as a stone! No evidence of ever having had a drop of water!! More meditation. The kettle was full--no room for water--rice must have swollen--get a larger kettle! Eureka!! And he got the larger kettle, and again flooded the rice, hoping it would be done by the time he had arranged his breakfast on the table. It had been cooking half an hour, and he had often heard Maria say that half an hour of quick boiling was enough--more spoiled it. To be sure this had not been “quick,” but “the extra length of time ought to compensate,” he reasoned, and with a very good show of logic.
But the law of compensation didn’t work, and all Mr. Brown’s logic left him helpless in the presence of that rice, when, after getting everything else on the table he again looked at it, only to find it as hard as possible, dry again, and up to the very edge of the second kettle!
“Well, I can have it for dinner. It will save cooking fresh;” and he again emptied it into a still larger kettle and sat down to a really good breakfast of which rice was not a component. Under the exhilarating influence of the coffee he grew facetious, and sustained all sides in a family conversation--to keep up a flow of spirits during the meal--varied by calls to an imaginary Bridget, whom he assured in a very good imitation of Maria’s blandest tones, “Mr. Brown will bring company to dinner to-night, so be prompt.”
He read the morning paper, while indulging in his third cup of the delicious beverage---then decided to put the dishes in the sink, unwashed, as there were so few soiled and plenty of fresh ones.
“Besides,” he reasoned with masculine forethought, “maybe Ed will help me wash them to-night”--which no one who knew Ed’s innermost would ever have suggested, as he had no genius for housekeeping, no intellectual craving for its drudgery, and a horror of anything about it except its most fastidious results. However, Mr. Brown did not know this, when he banked on Ed’s company and help--and when Ed was invited home to dinner “and to stay all night” he accepted with alacrity and with no thought of what was in store for him.
Mr. Brown dismissed himself from his office promptly at five this time, hoping to surprise Ed with a properly-served and really elegant dinner, having made elaborate preparations by telephone orders for steak, vegetables and fruit; and he hurried home happy in the consciousness of having demonstrated “intellectual capacity as a necessary adjunct of good housekeeping.” As he opened the door, an odor of something burning offended his somewhat delicate olfactory organs, but he proceeded with deliberate precision to divest himself of his street garb before descending to the kitchen, where he saw, oh, horrors! Rice on the range, on the floor, and everywhere, in great abundance; boiling, burning and dry, and that large kettle standing there full to the brim of a solid mass, dry and hard, the fire nearly out, having burned all day without a damper.
Mr. Brown was somewhat discouraged, but went bravely to work to rescue the range and floor from another inundation of rice and to clean up what had overflowed; but long before through the work of restoration the bell rang. He made no change in his looks before going up stairs, rightly thinking Ed would size up the joke in good shape and they would enjoy the whole thing in royal masculine style. He even forgot to drop the little shovel with which he had been scooping up the rice--his intellect was too weighty to suggest the use of a broom--so it now and then dropped a tear of rice on the carpet as he went to the door.