CHAPTER VI
Max did sleep on it but morning brought no solution for the riddle. While he dressed he pondered it, stopping to study the stately constitution and by-laws submitted with the invitation. From them he gathered a greater respect for the organization than its frivolous name had given him. But he got no further toward discovering the reason for his invitation, and ran downstairs, a little late, to find Mrs. Schmitz unusually excited.
She had been drawn on jury duty, her first experience, for she had not lived in Washington in the earlier territorial days when women were citizens.
“That cook comes not before next week, and now they call me on jury already. That marmalade will spoil surely.”
“Get excused,” advised Max.
“To make marmalade?” Mrs. Schmitz turned swiftly to him, speaking sternly. “In Germany one man does everything—one man and a few nobility. In America all men of the nation have each work to do; and here in Washington also women. I do not shirk.”
“I see.”
“We’ll take good care of things,” Sydney assured her; “it’s fine that it’s vacation. Tell us what to do.”