“However did you manage it?” she gasped.
“Nothing’s too good for Y.D.‘s daughter,” was the only explanation Tompkins would offer, but, as Zen afterwards said, the smile on his face was as good as another breakfast. After the fruit came porridge, and more cream; then fresh boiled eggs with toast; then fresh ripe strawberries with more cream.
“Mr.—Mr.—”
“Tompkins, Ma’am; Cyrus Tompkins,” he supplied.
“Well, Mr. Tompkins, you’re a wonder, and when there’s a new cook to be engaged for the Y.D. I shall think of you.”
“Indeed I wish you would, Ma’am,” he said, earnestly. “This road work’s all right, and nobody ever cooked for a better boss than Mr. Transley—savin’ it would be your father, Ma’am—but I’m a man of family, an’ it’s pretty hard—”
“Family, did you say, Mr. Tompkins? How many of a family have you?”
“Well, it’s seven years since I heard from them—I haven’t corresponded very reg’lar of late, but they WAS six—”
The story of Tompkins’ family was cut short by the arrival of a team and mowing machine.
“What’s up, Fred?” called Tompkins through a window of his dining car to the driver. “Breakfust is just over, an’ dinner ain’t begun.”