"Don't be alarmed, love," I said, "if you hear the police in the house. Mrs. Bullwinkle has a large family, and feeds them all out of our provisions. A search shall be instituted, and slumbering Justice shall be aroused. Look at these joints, these chops, these steaks, these fillets, these kidneys, these gravy beefs!"
My wife shook her head, exactly as the cook had shaken hers; and answered, precisely as the cook had answered, "Mrs. Bullwinkle."
"But where does she hide it all?" I exclaimed.
My wife shut her eyes, and shuddered.
"John!" she said, "I have privately consulted the doctor; and the doctor says Mrs. Bullwinkle is a Cow."
"If the doctor had to pay these bills," I retorted savagely, "he would not be quite so free with his jokes."
"He is in earnest, dear. He explained to me, what I never knew before, that a Cow is an animal with many stomachs——"
"What!" I cried out, in amazement; "do you mean to tell me that all these joints, these chops, these steaks, these fillets, these kidneys, these gravy beefs—these loaves, these muffins, these mixed biscuits—these teas, these sugars, these brandies, gins, sherries, and beers, have disappeared in one week, down Mrs. Bullwinkle's throat?"
"All, John," said my wife, sinking back on the pillow with a groan.
It was impossible to look at the bills and believe it. I questioned and cross-questioned my wife, and still elicited nothing but the one bewildering answer, "All, John." Determined—for I am a man of a logical and judicial mind—to have this extraordinary and alarming case properly investigated, I took out my pocket-book and pencil, and asked my wife if she felt strong enough to make a few private entries for my satisfaction. Finding that she willingly accepted the responsibility, I directed her to take down, from her own personal investigation, a statement of Mrs. Bullwinkle's meals, and of the time at which she partook of each of them, for twenty-four hours, beginning with one morning and ending with another. After making this arrangement, I descended to the parlour, and took the necessary business measures for using the cook as a check upon her mistress. Having carefully instructed her to enter, on the kitchen slate, everything that was sent up to Mrs. Bullwinkle, for twenty-four hours, I felt that my machinery for investigating the truth was now complete. If the statement of the mistress, in bed on the second floor, agreed with the statement of the cook, in the distant sphere of the kitchen, there could be no doubt that I had obtained reliable information on the mysterious subject of Mrs. Bullwinkle's meals.