Warble's own maid was named Beer.

A French thing—so slim she seemed nothing but a spine, but supplied with slender, talkative arms and a pair of delicate silk legs that displayed more or less of themselves as the daily hint from Paris reported skirts going up or down as the case might be.

A scant black costume and a touch of white apron completed the picture, and Warble played with her as a child with a new doll.

Beer wanted to patronize Warble, tried to do so, but found it impossible. Her patronage rolled off of Mrs. Bill Petticoat like hard sauce off a hot apple dumpling.

“Do you get enough to eat, Beer?” her mistress asked her.

“Wee, maddum,” the maid replied, in her pretty War French. “I eat but a small.”

“Well, don't drop to pieces, that's all,” warned Warble. As to personal care and adornment the hitherto neglected education of Warble Petticoat was in Beer's hands. And she handed it out with unstinted lavishness.

That was the way things came to Warble; in slathers—in big fat chunks. In avalanches and rushing torrents.

Beer engineered all her new wardrobe, and received sealed proposals for its construction.

Beer taught her the mysteries of the toilette table, and once initiated into this entrancing art, Warble let herself go in the matter of cosmetics and make-ups, and could scarce wait for Beer's afternoon out, to dabble about by herself.

Beer taught her how to wear jewelry, and directed what pieces she should ask Petticoat for next.

Altogether, Warble was trying out things—but carefully, as a good housewife tries out lard.

And she was not yet certain as to the results. Environment has to reckon, now and then with heredity.

Warble, at soul, all for utility, economy, diligence and efficiency, transplated to Butterfly Center, with its keynote of careless idleness, waste motion and extravagance.

One must win out. Had she a Dempsey of a heredity against a Carpentier of an environment? Or was it the other way round?

She planned to reform Butterfly Center, to do away with the street statues, the useless patches of flowers; tear down and rebuild the ridiculous classic architecture of many of the shops and substitute good solid livable houses for the castles and chÂteaux, the barracks and bungalows that adorned the residence section.

These reforms she meant to bring about shortly, but first, she must begin with her home.

In her pride of being a Petticoat she loved every detail of Ptomaine Haul. Yet she knew it did not express herself, it was not the keynote of her own Warbling personality.

What to do.

She sat in her boudoir, its mauve walls and gold Japanese screens backgrounding her plump prettiness, as she lolled on a gold brocade chaise longue.

She glanced out at the peacocks strutting in the Italian garden and listened to the rooks cawing in the cypresses between the marble urns on the terrace steps.

It was a big proposition to change all that. To turn the bird sticks into pruning hooks and the bird baths into plowshares.

Could she do it?

Doubtful.

She went out into the hall and looked over the rail of the great rotunda. Rugs hung from the rail, as it might be a Turkish Monday.

Below, she could see the lake in the front hall, also she could glimpse the armored bronze Petticoats guarding the entrance that led to the corridor that led to the hall leading into the dining-room.

It was well nigh hopeless.

Warble sighed. Then she rang for Beer and ordered some French pastry and a cup of chocolate.

Revived and revivified, Warble decided on a mad dash for reform.

Ordering Beer to dress her quickly, she did all she could to help, and soon, in a daring combination of canary, black and coral, she was on her way to the shops.

She achieved what is known as a utility box, and which is compounded of matting and a few bamboo strips.

This she caused to be set up in her boudoir.

Came Petticoat.

No oral observations, but the next day an antique Florentine chest, carved by Dante, replaced the box.

“Just as utile,” Bill remarked, “and a lot more expensive. Kiss me.”

That is the way the Petticoats of this world decree, and that is the way the Warbles submit.

That Thursday afternoon she was in love with her husband. She toddled into his room to talk to him. She was in pastel chiffon boudoir jambiÉres picked out with rosebuds. She sat, cross-legged, on one of his gray satin floor pillows and looked up at him.

Petticoat was just going out and he sat before the mirror, earnestly adjusting a hair net over his permanent.

“Hello, Fruit Mousse,” he said, half absent-mindedly, as he went on adjusting.

Big Bill Petticoat was far from being effeminate. He was found of aesthetics and anaesthetics, and his chief interests in life were beauty and his big bills.

“What's the use of beauty, if a thing isn't useful?” Warble would ask, and Petticoat would reply, “What's the use of use, anyway? There's no use in having anything that isn't beautiful.”

And as the house was under Petticoat rule, Big Bill won out.

“You must have a party, Warble,” Petticoat said, as he fitted a long, slim cigarette into a long, slim holder.

“I'd rather have a baby,” and she looked up at him inquiringly.

“Honest, Warbie, I can't afford it. I've lots of money, but we take a lot of keeping ourselves, and to keep a baby means almost a whole extra establishment. Let's wait till I've saved up a bit, or we have a windfall. Leathersham owes me a small fortune for his cook's ptomaine cases—she's always getting poisoned with her imported canned things—but Goldie's slow pay, and too, I want to make a few improvements on the place. I'm thinking of bringing over a Moorish Courtyard intact—nice, eh?”

“What's it good for?” demanded Warble. “We've done our courting, and anyway—look here, Bill, there's only three things I can do. Have a baby—”

“Cut it out, Warb; I haven't the means just now. And it might be twins.”

“That's so. Well, the second thing is to reform this town. It's going to the dogs—to little, silly Pekes and Poms. I can save it, and correct its ways and put it on a sound utilitarian basis.”

“Don't believe you could do that.”

“Can do. But the third trick is to flop over to their side and be like the town people myself.”

Petticoat laughed outright.

“Nixy on that, Warble, my duck. You'd have to reduce.”

“I speck I should. Well, then the reform act for mine. I've got to do something, Pet, to keep amused and interested.”

“That's what I said. Have a party.”

“I will. And it will be part of the reform. These people are too highbrow. Too soulful. Too artistic—”

“Warble! How many times have I told you never to use that word! Now, look here, if you want to play at reforming, go ahead, nobody will interfere with you. But where'll you get time? You spend most of your waking hours in slumber, and the rest, eating. You're a sweet, lovely, cuddly thing, but if you keep on, some day you'll find you can't get your kimono together.”

“Then I'll wear two. But, Bill, I'm not so big, you know.”

Warble up, and parading the room with a martial air.

“You're a perfect Bellona!” Petticoat said, smiling at her.

“A Bologna! Oh, you horrid thing! But that reminds me I haven't had sausage lately. I must speak to cook. Now, about my party.”

“Have a good one while you're about it. I might import a Spanish Ballet—”

“You might do nothing of the sort! This is to be my party, and I shall run it to suit myself.”

“All right, Tutti Frutti; you have no subtlety or poetry in your soul—indeed, I doubt if you have a soul—but you're a dear and a sweet—”

“Bill, I've an idea! Build bureaus right down to the floor and then collar buttons can't roll under them!”

“Fine idea! Better patent it. Must go. Goodby.”

“Wait a minute. Mrs. Holm Boddy is coming to see me to-day. What's she like?”

“Oh, she's a hen-minded Hetty with cabriole legs. Don't bother with her much. They're lower case people—tin pergola and pebble garden sort. And early Victorian bathrooms. You won't like her—freeze her out.”

“All righty. Say—Billy dear—has you any choclums?”

“Not for little gourmands,” he took her in his arms. “I say, Warbie, you promised to cut out sweets. Look here.”

He led her to the picture gallery where his simpering or frowning ancestors looked down in painted disapproval.

They were all slender—wasp-waisted ladies, long lean men. Not a fatty in the bunch.

Big Bill said nothing, his painted morals adorned their own tale.

“I don't care!” Warble exploded, angrily. “If you don't give me enough to eat, I'll leave your bed and board and put a notice in the paper. And you needn't flaunt your Petticoats in my face! I don't care that for them!”

She snapped a dimpled pink thumb and forefinger at the whole exhibit, made a face at the skinniest one of all, and then sneaked casually into Bill's arms.

“Nice, nice,” she cooed, patting his mastoid process. “Run along now, and I'll plan my party.”

“That Boddy woman,” remarked Beer, as she dressed Warble; “she is a pest—a pill! Wait, Maddum, I beg you! I've only rouged one of your cheeks!”

“That's enough,” said Warble, inattentively, and she danced down stairs to freeze out her caller.

“I've been meaning to come for some time,” Mrs. Holm Boddy said, “but I thought I'd give you a chance to get a little used to your new grandeur. Quite a change for you, isn't it?”

“No,” said Warble, “it's rather a come down. I've always been very grand. Tell me about yourself.”

“Oh, I'm the old-fashioned wife and mother. Devoted to my home, and my family. I deplore the modern tendency to neglect one's own fireside.”

“Yes, I should think you'd be happier there than anywhere else.”

Warble gazed at her guest. She was a tall, angular woman, so gaunt that her bones rattled. Warble wondered if Bill would really like her to be like that.

“Oh, I am. My dear husband, my darling children—you ought to have a lot of children, Mrs. Petticoat.”

“Yes, I shall, when we can afford it. My husband isn't very well off just now, you see.”

“You live very extravagantly. Look at those rugs, now. Rugs cost fearfully.”

“Don't you have any?”

“Oh, no. We don't waste money that way.”

“Bare floors?”

“No, carpets. More homey, you know. Nice Brussels in the parlor—real Body Brussels—Bigelow—and in the bedrooms, Ingrain. Oh, the hominess of a new-laid Ingrain carpet, with lots of fresh straw under it! You acquainted with Avery Goodman, the Rector?”

“I've met him.”

“Splendid man-spiritual-minded and all that. Fine preacher, too. Very soulful. I often sob right through his sermons. Better go hear him.”

“My husband is a busy man—we haven't time for church.”

“No, spose not. Doctors are kept on the jump. Specially specialists. And I know your husband is busy. Say, is there any truth in the report that he pays the grocers and delicatessen men to get—you know—doubtful canned goods, and not too fresh sea foods and all that—so there'll be more ptomaine cases?”

“What a good idea!” Warble cried. “I had not heard of it, but if Bill does that he's more efficient than I thought him!”

“I spose he's terribly in love with you?”

“Bill? Oh, yes. We adore each other.”

“I didn't know. The Petticoats are all so thin—”

“Yes, a change is always pleasant.” Warble gave her engaging smile.

“Maybe. That Daisy Snow now—she's so pretty and slender. Dr. Petticoat seems mighty fond of her.”

“Well, you know what doctors are. Nice to everybody, of course. There's no telling who'll have ptomaine poisoning next.”

“Oh, yes, you can always tell that. It's sure to be Iva Payne. She's awful attractive, too. You must be worried about your man, Mrs. Petticoat.”

“I do worry a lot. It keeps my flesh down. Tell me more to worry about.”

“Well, there's Lotta Munn, of course. I suppose you haven't a fortune of your own?”

“Oh, yes; I'm enormously rich in my own right.”

“You are! Why, where did your husband get you?”

“He got me out of a mail catalogue.” Warble made a face at her. “Must you go, Mrs. Boddy?” she rose. “I won't ask you to come again, as I know how you love your own home and fireside. Goodby.”

Though Mrs. Holm Boddy put up a strong resistance, Warble pushed her out of the front door and slammed it after her.

“That woman has left finger marks on my nice clean soul,” she said, as she went down to see the cook about the sausage.