Augusta and Jimmie laughed happily over the memory of that amazing evening when they had first seen McQuade, and Augusta was starting to tell Mrs. McQuade about their awakening the morning after, while at the same time she was mechanically prodding about in the snow with her paddle to pick up more wax. She looked down, surprised and disbelieving. McQuade had given her a helping of wax so big that she had not believed that she could eat a quarter of it. And, without thinking or stopping, she had eaten up every bit of it. And she was hungry for more.
She looked up in horror, and exclaimed confusedly:
"I beg everybody's pardon. I never piggied anything up so in my life!"
"Don't apologize, dear," said Fan McQuade, smiling down into Augusta's burning face. "We'd've been disappointed if you hadn't done just as you did. I always distrust people who don't forget themselves when they first eat sugar wax. I think there must be something wrong with them."
Wardwell, who had done exactly as his wife had done, had not even the grace to look guilty. With deliberate optimism, he was making a hopeful estimate on how many times he could repeat the performance.
McQuade was in no wise perturbed.
"Take breath, and we'll begin again fair. It's the one thing," he explained, as he started away to bring more, "that you can take too much of to-night, and wake up wantin' more in the mornin'."
On his way to the fire he was stopped by the sound of singing from outside. A loud, defiant voice broke in above the panting of the furnace, inquiring lustily:
"Where, Oh, where, are the vi-shuns of morning?"
A determined knocking on the door punctuated the song. And then the voice answered its own question laconically: