Thin—Pat Malone forgot that he wot dead—
He raised his head and shouldthers from th’ bed;
Which ditty tickled her host beyond measure as he continued his cooking operations.
Presently, tiring of the piano, she got up and, leaning in the doorway, regarded him with serious, appraising eyes.
“Man,” she said solemnly, “’tis th’ grand voice that ye have—singin’ away all on your lonesome.”
And, dropping the brogue, she quoted, to his intense amusement and surprise, a well-worn verse from “Omar Khayyám.”
“So,” said Ellis, with a delighted chuckle, as the daring and utter absurdity of the quotation, under the circumstances, struck him, “it’s kind of you to suggest it. All the ingredients are at hand, too, except the ‘Flask of Wine,’ ‘Wilderness enow,’ particularly.... Sorry about the Wine, though, after that compliment. Unfortunately, we’re strictly ‘on the tack,’ as we call it, just now. Oh, ‘Barkis is willin’,’ all right.”
He cleared the books and papers off the table in the living-room and, spreading out the simple repast that he had prepared for her, drew up a chair.
“Grub pi-i-ile!” she shrilled, in droll imitation of a camp cookee; and, seating herself, she attacked the frugal meal with a healthy appetite that fully demonstrated her previous admission that she was hungry.
“Sorry I forgot to ask whether you’d have tea or coffee,” he said apologetically. “I’ve made you coffee.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” she said carelessly. “I much prefer coffee. Thanks. My! but I’m hungry!”