"Oh Ma!" I says. "Don't! Please don't go back! Whatever would we do without you?" I says. And Jim added his entreaties.
"Why, Ma Gilligan, what bally rot!" he says, which it's quite noticeable the amount of English he's picked up over there. "What a silly ass you are, old dear!" he says. "Here we are going to California and who would cook for us if not you?" he says, "with the cook-question like it is out there?"
Well, that weakened Ma considerable, for cooking is her middle name. So she set down the suit-case.
"Ma!" I begged her. "We couldn't have too much of you, and you would never be in the way or a burden no matter what the scales say. For heaven's sake take off that hat, it's too young for you, and burden us with the first home cooking Jim has had in two years!"
Well, she give in at that, and sat down the snake and her dolman and pocket-book.
"Well, all right then!" she says. "I'll stay!" Which is about all the emotion Ma ever shows. "Whew, but it's hot in here!" she says and turns to open the window and we left her do it, because we seen she didn't want us to notice her tears. And as she opened it she gives a shriek and leans way over, grabbing at something. And hardly had she yelled than from below come a holler and a flow of language the like of which I had never heard, no, not even at the studio when something went wrong! Then Ma commenced to laugh something hysterical and pulled herself back in through the window and leaned against the side of it, hollering her head off.
"What is it?" I says.
"It's Maude!" gasps Ma. "She was shut under the winder and when I opened it she fell out and lit on Rudie's head which was sitting right underneath."
Well, we could hardly hear her for the noise in the kitchen. The dumb-waiter was buzzing like all possessed. I and Jim rushed out and there, lickety-split, come the dumb-waiter only it was more inarticulate than dumb by then, and on it the case of Old Home lacking only three quarts.
"I find your whiskey, Miss La Tour!" says Rudie's voice, very weak and shagy from below. "I chust find him and send him right away, quick!"