It was the last day of my week. The youngsters and I had had a bad breakfast and a skimpy, cold luncheon, and I was bidden to dress them in their fussiest best and bring them in at the tag end of Mrs. Laney's bridge afternoon. They were just sitting down to tea as I came in. Tea! I was absolutely hungry after the long succession of miserable meals, ready to recite "Only Three Grains of Corn, Mother," with moving gestures, and the sallow little wretches beside me were clear cases of malnutrition. Well, there were three kinds of delectable sandwiches and consommé with whipped cream and chocolate with whipped cream and an opulent salad and wonderful little cakes—four kinds—and candy and salted nuts. My mouth watered and I know my nostrils quivered. First, I blush to say, I thought of hungry me, and then I thought of the undernourished children, and then I thought of the badly fed and badly cared for and badly treated husband, and I looked over the other eight or ten women and catalogued them at once as Mrs. Laney's type, and suddenly I decided to give myself a treat. I reached calmly over and selected a handful of sandwiches and cakes and gave them to the youngsters and sent them up to the nursery, and then, my dears, with what solid satisfaction you cannot possibly guess, I told my mistress exactly what I thought of her. She was aghast and scared; she thought I was a maniac, a desperate fanatic.
"Edna, Edna," she gasped, "be quiet! My guests—these ladies——"
"Ladies! Ladies!" I pounced on it. "Do you know what 'ladies' means? Of course you don't,—you're much too ignorant. It means—'loaf-givers', providers, dispensers of bounty, care-takers, home-makers. You—all of you—with your lazy, thick bodies trussed into your straight fronts and your fat feet crammed into bursting pumps and your idle hands blazing with jewels" (I know I was bromidic there, but my Phillipic was too swift to be polished) "and your empty heads dyed and marcelled, you're not loaf-givers,—you're not givers at all, you're takers! You're loafers—cumberers of the earth—fat slugs, that's what you are, each and every one of you! You"—I pointed to Mrs. Laney—"you don't even see that your children are properly fed! You don't make home livable, let alone lovable for your husband, and at this moment"—I swept the feast with a fierce and baleful eye—"you're a thief!"
She shrieked at that and all the women got to their feet. It was as if I'd thrown a bomb—and I daresay they thought I might at any instant.
"A thief," I said, "takes what doesn't belong to him, and this doesn't belong to you! You're deep in debts,—bills that your poor, harassed husband cannot pay!"—and before she could emit the furious words on her lips—"Oh, no, you're not going to discharge me! You can't, for I've left already! I wouldn't stay another night in your wretched house, I wouldn't eat another of your wretched meals. You may keep my week's wage. I wish you'd buy the children beefsteak with it but I've no doubt it will go for cocktails and henna!"
Then, while they gasped and jibbered with rage and got behind each other and shook in their bulging pumps, I turned on my heel and made a stunning exit, gathered up my belongings and came away.
There was no welcome on Mrs. Mussel's mat, but I'm still glowing. Aren't you both immensely pleased with me? I am with myself!
J.
The Next Night.