"Two aigs regular," she would say, with all a housekeeper's glory in her guests' enjoyment of food.
There was enough credit to go round, indeed, and Jimmy presently became the animated and interesting center of the family. He might have been a new baby and his bedroom the sacred nursery. He was being spoiled every hour of the day.
"Did he have a good night?" Agatha would anxiously inquire of Mr. Hand.
"Can't tell which is night; he sleeps all the time," would be the tenor of Mr. Hand's reply. Or Sallie would ask, as if her fate depended on the answer, "Did he eat that nice piece er chicken, Aunt Susan?" And Mrs. Stoddard would say, "Eat it! It disappeared so quick I thought he'd choke. Wanted three more just like it, but I told him that invalids were like puppy-dogs—could only have one meal a day."
"Well, how'd he take that?" asked the interested Sallie.
"He said if I thought he was an invalid any longer I had another guess coming. Says he'll be up and into his clothes by to-morrow, and is going to take care of me. Says I'm pale and need a highball, whatever that is."
"Never heard of it," said Sallie.
"He's a good young man, if he did get pitched overboard," went on Mrs. Stoddard. "But he doesn't need me any more, and I guess I'll be going along home."
"I don't know but what the rest of us need you," complained Sallie. "It's more of a Sunday-school picnic here than you'd think, what with a New York press agent and a princess, to say nothing of that Mr. Hand."
"He certainly knows how to manage a sick man," said Susan.