“THE butcher, ma’am.”

Mrs. Chauncey Callender put down her half-eaten muffin with a gesture of despair, as she looked at the tidy, white-capped maid before her.

“Why does he always come at breakfast time? As if it is possible to know then what one is going to want for the day! I’m sure I can’t think of a thing! Chauncey, you might help me. I get so tired planning the meals, and it’s very hard to order for a small family. What would you like for dinner to-night?”

“Roast peacock,” said Mr. Callender.

“Would you like a beefsteak?” His wife patiently ignored the last remark, which as a stock answer to a stock question had even ceased to irritate her.

“I shouldn’t mind having it.”

“‘Shouldn’t mind having it!’ I’m asking you if you want it.”

“I want anything that you do.”

“Oh, Chauncey! You’ll drive me crazy-mad some day. I wish you’d express a preference; it would make it so much easier for me. Would you like chicken? I know that Cadmus has poultry on Wednesday.”

Mr. Callender’s expression became suddenly tinged with melancholy. Although he was now metropolitan in appearance, manner, and habit, his early existence had been spent upon a farm, where the killing and eating-up of chickens at certain periods of the year was an economic process, compulsory upon the household. A momentary sickness and distaste of life seemed evolved from the recollection as he answered,

“I don’t seem to care much for chicken.”

“You never do, and I am so fond of it. Well, chops then. Would you like breaded chops?”

“We have those almost every night, don’t we?” returned Mr. Callender briskly, under the impression that he was being agreeable. “When in doubt, have chops. Oh, yes, I like them well enough, when they’re not raw in the middle, like the last. But get what you want yourself, Cynthia, it really doesn’t make any difference to me.”

“That’s so like you! Why don’t you tell me at the time when things are wrong, instead of coming out with it like this, afterwards? Why didn’t you say the chops were raw? Mine were all right.” She regarded him with affectionate exasperation, her wrath tempered by a guilty consciousness that there had been undue sameness in the meals lately. “If I were like some wives—”

“The butcher, ma’am—he’s waiting,” interposed the maid apologetically.

“Tell him I’ll come down to the village myself and give the order,” said Mrs. Callender with dignity. “I’ll surprise you with a really good dinner to-night, something out of the ordinary. We’ll have a dinner party for ourselves.”

“All right,” said Mr. Callender with amiable alacrity, feeling relieved of all individual responsibility. “Let’s, as the children say. I’ll bring out a bottle of wine and some flowers for you, to carry out the idea,” he added, with a magnificent cooperation in her plans that would have made up for all his previous shortcomings if he had not suddenly remarked as he was going out of the door,

“By the way, we may have company to-night, but I’m not sure. I nearly forgot to mention it.”

“Chauncey!”

“A couple of Englishmen, over here to interview the firm; nice fellows, you’d like ’em. They may give us a big order if things are satisfactory, and we treat ’em right.”

“Chauncey!”

But he was gone for his train. Mrs. Callender looked horrified, and then laughed. It was a way she had. His unexpectedness was always a secret delight to her, although she outwardly bemoaned it; it gave her a gambler’s interest in existence, and also a pleasing sense of masculine masterfulness. She was wont to thank Heaven that she was married to a man.

At no time would Mrs. Callender have been averse to the society of two nice men for dinner. She decided at once to expect them permanently, and accordingly took her cookery books in for consultation with the kitchen divinity, an elderly competent woman, newly installed, whose look of aggrieved patience had been gained from a peripatetic experience of young and erratic housewives.

This being swooped a pile of dish-towels off in one arm from the back of a chair as Mrs. Callender drew it forward, swooped a cluster of dishes from the table, and with still another swoop wiped the white oil-cloth cover clean enough for the books to be deposited on it. She then stood, her hands in front of her, rigidly attentive to the words of fate.

There was, however, an innate joyousness about young Mrs. Callender which bubbled forth at all times and in all places, carrying preconceived opinions with it. The countenance of the cook insensibly relaxed as Mrs. Callender beamingly said,

“I’m going to have a good dinner to-night, Catherine, and I want you to help me.”

“Yes, ma’am—for how many?”

“Only four. I’ve decided on some of the things I want. You know how to make cream of celery soup?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And boiled salmon with white sauce—you made the last very nicely; and cucumbers dressed with oil and vinegar—”

“You’ll have to order the oil, ma’am, as we’re just out of it.”

“Yes, I will; of course, we’ll need it for the mayonnaise also. I’ll have tomato salad, and I wish you would make some cheese wafers to go with it like those we had when you came last week. They were awfully good. And I want just a few rhubarb tarts and a frozen chocolate pudding for dessert—here’s the receipt for that—with whipped cream. And you might make a small cake of any kind that’s easy, Catherine.”

“What kind of meat is it to be, ma’am?”

“Spring lamb,” said Mrs. Callender with all the solemnity which such a resolution demanded. To buy real spring lamb in the suburbs in early April puts one on a level with a moneyed aristocracy. “Spring lamb with mint sauce and fresh peas and new potatoes, if I can get them,” she added reverently as a saving clause. She blessed her lucky stars that it was not a Friday, when, as every suburban dweller knows, there are only a few wilted strands of green to be seen in the vegetable bins, and nothing but cold round potatoes and onions and turnips are untemptingly offered for sale.

“And oh, Catherine,” concluded Mrs. Callender, “we’ll have coffee, of course; and I wish you’d make some of those lovely little rolls of yours—that is, if you have time,” she generously conceded.

“I’ll put the bit of ironing I have on hand away until to-morrow,” said Catherine with the resignation of necessity. “And you’ll make out a list, ma’am, if you please, of the things we do be needing. I’d have to get at the cake and the rolls this morning. There’s not a thing in the house to-day to start on. We’ve no eggs, nor cheese, nor cream, nor chocolate, and not enough butter, and no rock salt for the freezing, and there’s no fruit either, if you want that.”

“Oh, yes, certainly! It’s well that you reminded me.” Mrs. Callender beamed anew upon her help. “I’m going out to-day to luncheon, so you and Nelly will have all the time there is. I’ll go and see about the ordering at once as soon as I have given her directions about the table. I want everything to look as pretty as possible. Mr. Callender is going to bring me some lovely flowers for the center of it,” she concluded with a little flourish.

In the little rounds of a suburban town any incident is an event. Mrs. Callender felt that the day had become one of real importance. She let her fancy play around the two Englishmen and her good dinner and her own toilet until she was in a very pleasurable state of excitement. And to be going out to luncheon besides! The latter, however, was not a real function, but only the usual concomitant of a French reading which she held every week with a friend—still, it was quite like having two invitations in one day.

It happened that another friend stopped in casually that morning to see Mrs. Callender, on her way home from marketing, and from her she gained the pleasing knowledge that all the viands on which she had set her reckless fancy were really to be had that day—even to the fresh peas, whose pods might almost have contained small balls of gold, so stupendous was the price asked for them. But when she finally went upstairs to dress she found, to her consternation, that it was already half-past eleven, and not a thing ordered yet!

Every moment now was precious. She concentrated all her attention, and sitting down by her desk took up a sheet of blue paper and wrote down rapidly on it a list of all her wants—one for the grocer, and one for the butcher. Then Fortune favoring her with the sight of little Jack Rand across the street, on his bicycle, she called him over and confided the list to his care.

“And be sure that they both read the order carefully,” she said. “Take it on to Cadmus when O’Reilly is through with it. You will not need to tell them anything except that they are to send the things at once.”

“Yes,” said Jacky, departing with swift-revolving red legs. As she saw the blue paper in his hands a strange reluctance seemed to hover over her, she couldn’t tell why, as if it were somehow wrong to write lists on blue paper. Perhaps it was extravagant. There was a load off her mind when Jack returned to affirm the faithful performance of his errand, before she started out for the luncheon. “‘They had all the things and they’ll send them right up, they promised.’” She repeated his words with a glow of satisfaction.

There was no French after luncheon that day. Her friend had tickets for the private view of some pictures in town and persuaded Mrs. Callender to accompany her, under the pledge of taking an early train back. As a matter of fact, the six o’clock bells were ringing before Mrs. Callender had started to walk home from the station, feeling thoroughly guilty as she thought of her long defection from the affairs of the household on such a day, though it was quite likely that Chauncey’s friends would not come. The blue paper returned to her mind, unpleasantly, mysteriously.

She hastened into the kitchen, to be confronted by a scene of spotless order, a brilliant fire in the range shedding a red glow over the hearth, and the white-aproned cook sitting in front of it with her hands folded and a stony glare in her eyes.

“How is the dinner getting on?” asked Mrs. Callender nervously.

“There ain’t no dinner,” said the cook.

“No dinner! What do you mean, Catherine?”

“Not the sign of a thing has come this whole blessed day, ma’am; and me a-waitin’ here with my ironin’ half done, in the middle of the week. Not an egg nor a potato is there in the house, even.”

Mrs. Callender stopped, confounded. The shops were all closed at that hour.

“Why, I saw Jack Rand myself, after he had given the order!” she exclaimed, and then—she knew: like lightning her association with the sheet of blue writing-paper was revealed to her; on the other side of it was written the address of a newcomer who lived across the track at the other end of the village. The marketing had gone there!

“Well, I never heard of such a thing!” she commented blankly, and, as usual, laughed.

It was but a brief ten minutes later that her husband was presenting his guests to her—they had come! She had been but hoping against hope that they would not.

“Cynthia, I want to introduce Mr. Warburton and Mr. Kennard. I have persuaded them to dine with us to-night.”

“It was awfully good of your husband to invite us,” said Mr. Warburton, who was the elder, pleasant-faced and gray-haired, with the refined accent and accustomed manner of a gentleman. “I hope we’ll not inconvenience you, Mrs. Callender.”

“No, I hope we’re not inconveniencing you,” murmured the other, who looked nineteen and was twenty-nine, who spoke from somewhere down in his throat and blushed with every word.

“Not in the least,” said Mrs. Callender, immediately and intrepidly rising to the occasion. She was a stanchly hospitable little soul, and to have refused a welcome to the guests foisted on her would have been as impossible to her at any time as to the proverbial Arab. There was an inscrutable defiance in her eyes, however, when they met her husband’s, which puzzled him uncomfortably.

“Mr. Nichols wished us all to dine at the Waldorf-Astoria,” he explained—Mr. Nichols was the senior partner of the firm. “But I found, accidentally, that these gentlemen were extremely tired of living at hotels, and longed for a little home-like dinner, by way of variety.”

“We have been so much in your big hotels,” said Mr. Warburton apologetically. “It makes one very dull, after a time, I think. You can’t imagine, Mrs. Callender, our joy when Mr. Callender so kindly offered to take us in. It’s so uncommonly jolly of you both to treat us in this way.”

“I remembered that you said we were to have a particularly good dinner to-night, so I didn’t telegraph you when I found that they could come,” said Mr. Callender when the party had separated to dress and he and his wife were alone in their own room. “Nichols is very anxious to have them pleased—I told you that before, I think. They’re looking at machines, and if they take the London agency for us it will make a big difference. Why on earth did you look at me in that way downstairs? Is there anything wrong?”

“No; nothing is wrong,” said his wife ironically, “except that we haven’t any dinner—to speak of. Oh, dear, if you make me laugh I’ll never be able to hook this gown. No, it isn’t the least bit tight, it’s almost too loose, in fact—but I can’t hook it when I laugh. Chauncey, the order went wrong in some way, this morning, and the marketing never came at all. Just stand and take that in. If you had only helped me at breakfast when I asked you to, it wouldn’t have happened. I was away all the afternoon, and, of course, Catherine never sent for anything—just sat and waited. There’s nothing in the house but some cans of mock-turtle soup and tomatoes, and one can of corned beef, and a small one of plum pudding. Catherine is going to warm the beef in the tomatoes, and make a sauce for the pudding. I’d die before I’d apologize beforehand to those men; they’d never forgive themselves for coming.”

Mr. Callender whistled. “Good gracious! And to think we’ve come from the Waldorf-Astoria for this! But I don’t see yet how it happened,” he incautiously objected. “I should think you could have managed better in some way, Cynthia.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” said Mrs. Callender. “Well, I don’t. If you had the housekeeping to look after in a place like this, Chauncey, where you never can get anything you want, and there’s not a shop in the place open after half-past six—”

“Yes, I know, I know,” interposed Mr. Callender hastily, dodging the subject with the ease of long practice. “But couldn’t you knock up an omelet, or a Welsh rarebit, or some sort of a side dish? Couldn’t you borrow something?”

Mrs. Callender shook her head tragically.

“Nelly went to the Appletons and the Warings to see if she couldn’t get some eggs, but they had only one left at each place. It’s no use, Chauncey, we’ve got to do the best we can. I’ve put on my prettiest gown, and—did you bring the wine?”

“Yes, and it’s good,” said Mr. Callender with returning cheerfulness. He was glad now that he had paid a price for it that was too large ever to be divulged to his wife.

“And the flowers?”

“What flowers?”

“The flowers you said you were going to bring me.”

“My dear girl, I never thought of them from that moment to this.”

“Then we have nothing for the center of the table but that old crumpled-up fernery,” she paused tragically. “Not even fruit! There’s another plank gone.”

“Never mind, you’re the whole platform,” said her husband with jollity. “You always manage some way.”

“I have to,” she pleaded, looking at herself approvingly in the glass. The jetted black dress set off her white neck and arms very well. She never considered herself pretty, but she had an infectious smile, brilliant teeth, and those very light gray eyes that look black under excitement. She cast a provocative glance at her husband, with mock coquetry, and then deftly avoided his outstretched arm.

“I’ve no time for you,” she said saucily. “But for goodness’ sake, Chauncey, rise to the occasion all you can!”

The two irreproachably attired men who made their entrance into the drawing-room looked at her in a manner which she certainly found encouraging. She concluded that the chances were good for making them enjoy the dinner, irrespective of its quality. She was enjoying their unspoken admiration, and the conversation also, when Mr. Warburton returned to the subject of their invitation.

“It’s so good of you to have us without any notice—so uncommonly jolly for us. We’ve been so tired of hotel cooking, after the steamer.”

“Yes,” chimed in the other, “it grew to be almost as tiresome to us as the beastly tinned food we lived on when we were in Africa.”

“Oh, have you been in Africa lately?” asked Mrs. Callender with composure, although she and her husband felt the piercing of a mortal dart, and did not dare to look at each other.

“Yes, Kennard and I were on an exploring expedition last year, accidentally; it’s quite a long tale—but we lived on tinned soups and meats, and even plum pudding—fancy it in the hot climate!—until even the smell of them sickened us. We’ve not been able to touch a bit of tinned food since.”

“Canned things—or tinned, as you call them—are very useful in emergencies,” said Mr. Callender with idiotic solemnity. “You know you have to eat them sometimes—when you can’t—help yourself, you know. Oh, yes, in emergencies tinned things are very useful—if you like ’em.”

Mr. Kennard laughed heartily, as if at some delicate joke. “Ah, yes, yes, if you like them—if you like them, Warburton, yes—mind that, yes!”

“Excuse me for a moment,” said Mrs. Callender with graceful deliberation, sweeping slowly out of the room, and as soon as the door had closed behind her rushing into the kitchen wildly. The fortunes of war were against her, but win the victory she would. There had to be some way out of this!

“Don’t dish up a thing, Catherine,” she ordered breathlessly. “It is no use; the gentlemen never eat anything canned. I’ve got to think up something else.” Daunted by the grim face of the insulted cook, she turned appealingly to the waitress, a young and venturesome person, as woman to woman. “You must know of something I could do, Nelly!”

“The Warings, ma’am—”

“You told me you’d been there, and that everything they had was cooked for their own dinner.”

The eyes of Irish Nelly sparkled. “That’s just it, ma’am. Mr. Waring’s home late to-night, and they’re only just now sitting down to the soup. I seen it going in through the window. If you—” she stopped tentatively.

“Well, well—say it!”

“Sure, they’d loan you the whole dinner, ma’am, if you asked it.”

The light of kindred inspiration kindled in Mrs. Callender. The neighborhood was practically a joint-stock food company, where maids might be seen flitting through the back yard at any hour of the day or evening, with the spoils of the borrower. But an entire dinner! The magnificence of the scheme took Mrs. Callender’s breath away.

“You’d give the lend of it yourself, ma’am,” said Nelly impartially.

Mrs. Callender gasped—and assented.

“Come!” she said, and followed by the maid, dashed out of the kitchen door, down the back piazza steps, and then up again on the piazza of the adjoining house.

The people seated at the table in the dining-room looked up at the long window, amazed to see Mrs. Callender gesticulating insanely at them from without.

“Don’t help any more of that soup,” she called insistently. “Don’t help any more of it—wait till I get in.” The window opened from the inside, and she hurled herself into the room. “No, no!” she answered the look on their horror-struck faces, “it’s not poisoned. I don’t mean that—it’s all right; but I want it myself, I want your dinner. Oh, will you let me take it home with me?”

“My dear Mrs. Callender,” expostulated Mr. Waring in a quieting voice, rising cautiously.

“No, I’m not crazy! I mean just what I say. My husband has brought home company, and we had only a canned dinner, and they can’t eat it because they’ve been in Africa—and, oh, I can’t explain. And it’s so important to treat them well, and—oh, you dear thing!”

For Mrs. Waring had handed the soup to Nelly and was already giving orders to her own maid.

“Don’t say another word,” she commanded rapidly, with a woman’s perception grasping the situation. “Send us over just what you have in exchange. We have only a plain home dinner—roast beef, vegetables, macaroni, cottage pudding—you can put the things in your oven again. Henry, carry over this roast, will you? Don’t make any noise, any of you.”

“I’ll take the potatoes,” said Mrs. Callender fervently, but as she climbed her own piazza steps once more and saw the ghostly procession that came and went stealthily bearing dishes, her knees suddenly bent under her, and she leaned against one of the piazza posts, too weak from laughter to move.

“Take care, you’ll drop that dish,” said Mr. Waring interposing a dexterous arm, while he endeavored to balance the roast on the railing. “Mrs. Callender, don’t sit down on the piazza; get up. You’ll have me laughing, too, if you don’t stop, and I’ve got to take this in and go back for plates.”

“We have plates,” said Mrs. Callender, strangling. “Oh, Mr. Waring, we have plates—we have something. Oh, Mr. Waring, go and leave me, go and leave me! I’ll never be able to stand up.”

“Hello, what’s the matter?” Mr. Callender, with an excited whisper, came peering out into the semi-darkness. “That back door keeps letting in an infernal draught. What on earth are you and Waring doing out here, Cynthia? And you without a thing over your shoulders! I call that mean, having a good time out here by yourselves, and leaving me inside to do all the entertaining. Don’t you know that we’re waiting for dinner, and it’s after half-past seven o’clock?”

His ill-used expression was the last straw. Mr. Waring rocked and reeled with his platter, while the roast performed an obligato movement.

“Oh!” moaned Mrs. Callender as her husband finally assisted her to an erect position, and offendedly took up the dish of potatoes. “Don’t say a word, don’t ask me a thing; you’ll never in this world know all I’ve gone through in the last hour—you couldn’t take it in. But I’ve got the dinner—your Englishmen are provided for—your future is assured, and all that we have to do now is to go in and eat—and eat—and eat.”