"Huh!" grunts the Senator. "Hence the lamb stew, eh? I don't wonder! So you and Sis have undertaken to live in a forty-dollar apartment on a twenty-five-dollar salary, have you?"
"That's what it looks like, sir," says Mallory.
"And who is the financial genius that is to manage this enterprise?" says he.
"Why," says Skid, "Mrs. Mallory, I suppose. We have agreed that she should."
"Sis, eh?" says the Senator, smilin' kind of grim. "Well, you have my best wishes for your success."
Skid he flushes some behind the ears; but he only bows and says he's much obliged. You couldn't blame him for feelin' cut up, either; for it's all clear how the Senator has doped out an appeal for help within thirty days, and is willin' to wait for the call. I'm no shark on the cost of livin' myself; but even I could figure out a deficit. There's a call to dinner just then, though, and we all gathers round the stew.
Anyway, it was meant for a lamb stew. The potatoes was some hard, the gravy was so thin you'd thought it had been put in from the tea kettle as an afterthought, and the dumplin's hadn't the puffin' out charm worked on 'em for a cent. But the sliced carrots was kind of tasty and went all right with the baker's bread if you left off the bargain butter. Sis she tried to laugh at it all; but her eyes got kind of dewy at the corners.
"Never mind, dear," says Mother. "I'll telegraph for our old Martha to come on and cook for you."
"Why, certainly," says the Senator. "She could sleep on the fire escape, you know."
And say, that last comic jab of his, and the effect it had on Mr. and Mrs. Mallory, kind of got under my skin. I got to thinkin' hard and fast, and inside of five minutes I stumbles onto an idea.