Petticoat had five hobbies. Ptomaines, his collection of pieplates, Warble, his personal appearance and his Aunt Dressie.

The last was one of the old Cotton-Petticoats, and in her younger days had been a flibbertigibbet. Was still, for that matter, but she flibbered differently now.

She appeared unannounced, took up her favorite quarters in the N.N.W. wing, and permeated the household.

Tall. Slender. Smart. Sport suits. Bobbed hair. Smoked cigars.

About fifty-five, looked forty, acted thirty.

Fond of boxing and immediately on her arrival hunted up the butler to spar with him, being a bit off condition.

“I've no use for Bill,” she would say, “with his custard pie ideals, his soft-bosomed rooms and his purple and fine lingerie.”

Then she'd embrace her nephew wildly, and promise to make him her heir.

She looked at Warble appraisingly.

“You're a tuppenny, ha'penny chit, with eyes like two holes burnt in a blanket, and a nose Mr. Micawber might have waited for, but you'll do. You get everything you want, without effort, and that's a rare trait. What do you think of me?”

Warble made a face at her. “Corking!” screamed Aunt Dressie, “you come straight from heaven and you've slid into my soul. Does Bill love you?”

“Not adequately.”

“H'm. You love him?”

“Oh, yeth!”

“All right—love and grow thin, and then he'll come round. Or get a case of ptomaine poisoning—that'd help. But don't take the matter too lightly. If you want your husband, get him, if you don't, then let him go.

“I've just let mine go. You see we had a place—a sort of Vegetarian and Free Love Community proposition, but it didn't work out so we sold it.”

“And your husband?”

“Oh, he's on his own for a while. I'm deciding what to fly at next. I always ask nephew Bill's advice so as to know what not to do.”

“Forgot to mention it,” said Petticoat, strolling in, “but a few people are coming to-night to help me plan for my new Color Organ.”

“What's that?” asked Warble, gazing at Petticoat in azure-eyed adoration.

“Oh, Lord, don't you know anything? Tell her, Aunt Dressie!” and turning on his French heel, Petticoat walked delicately out of the room.

“Treat him rough, Warble, you're an awful fool,” commented the older woman. “Why, a Color Organ is that marvelous new invention that plays color instead of sound.”

“Color—instead of—sound—”

“Yes—now don't try to understand, for you can't possibly. Go and play with the children.”

“I won't. Tell me more about this thing.”

“I won't. You can hear it to-night, when they all talk about it.”

“What use is it?”

Aunt Dressie stared at her. “What use are you?” she said.

Warble's brain stopped beating.

Bump.

What use was she—she, the utilitarian, the efficient, the practical! What use? Grrrhhh!

She'd show 'em! The silly bunch! Not one of them could put together the dissected beef picture in the cook-book if the cuts were separated!

“I don't care! I won't endure it!

“What's Aunt Dressie anyhow? A military blonde, with glazed chintz undies! What's Marigold Leathersham? A smart party who wears a hat!

“What's Iva Payne? Nothing but a backbone—a shad! She's about the shape of a single rose vase! Damn her! Damn Lotta Munn and Daisy Snow, yes and May Young! They think they can charm my Bill off his perch with their revolting artistic propaganda, and their schools and non-schools and neo-schools! Rubbish!”

And when they came—came and talked wise and technical jargon about being endlessly enveloped in a toneless sound, about being drowned in an overwhelming sea of blue, pure and singing, and a moment later dropped into pale amethyst which in turn deepens to a threatening purple then plunges you into a turmoil of passionate red, always and constantly swirling and whirling and twisting and untwisting, gliding, approaching and retreating in that haunted and inexplicable color space—

There was more—much more—but at this point Warble rose, made a comprehensive, all-embracing and very outspoken face at them and went down to the pantry.

“It's no use—” she groaned, “perpetual waste motion—and now waste color! What to do—what to do!

“Yet I must reform them somehow. That Iva Payne! Like a pure, pale lily—but I bet her soul has got its rubbers on! Lotta Munn—spinster in name only—with her foolish pleasures and palaces—Daisy Snow, little innocent-making saucer eyes at my husband—oh, Bill, dear, I love you so—I wish I was pale and peakÉd and wise and—yes, and artistic! So there now!

“Well, there's only two alternatives. I must reform this toy town, or be dragged down to their terrible depths myself!

“Aunt Dressie says, love and grow thin. I surely love Bill enough, but if he doesn't love me—maybe I'd better try somebody else. It's done here.

“But not Trymie Icanspoon! No, he makes me sick. I guess I'll eat pickles.”

In the pantry she found the under scullery maid screaming with an earache.

“You poor child,” she said, sympathetically, “I'll run and get my husband and he'll cure it.”

She flew back to the room where the eager group had their heads together over the blue prints and wash drawing of the new color organ. Pushing in between Iva and Lotta she seized Bill by the arm and said, “hurry up now—matter of life or death—Polly, the maid—dying—urgent case—”

By that time they were down in the servant's pantry where Polly was moaning and groaning and wailing like a banshee.

“What is it, my dear?” Big Bill asked, gently, for Polly was a very pretty girl. “Oh, my ear! It aches and stings and burns and smarts and—”

“That'll do for a beginning,” Dr. Petticoat said, rolling up his sleeves and calling for basins of sterilized water and various antiseptics and disinfectants.

“Can you do anything, Bill?” Warble asked anxiously, “it isn't ptomaines, you know.”

“That's the devil of it! Why couldn't the silly thing have had a decent bit of ptomaine poisoning instead of this foolish earache. But, it's more than an earache! The bally ear has been stung—or something—anything bite you, Polly?”

“Yes, sir, a wasp.”

“She says a wathp!” exclaimed Warble. “Oh, Bill, it may mean blood poisoning!”

“Yes, that's true—it is—the ear will have to come off. Guess I'd better call in old Grandberry to operate—he's an ear specialist—”

“Oh, no, there won't be time! She may die!”

Warble was dancing about in her excitement. “You can do it, Bill.”

“All right. Get her up on the pastry table—there—that's all right. Now we'll take her blood pressure—here, Warb, you be taking her temperature, and send somebody for my stethoscope, and my case of instruments—and my X-ray apparatus. Now, my girl, don't cry. We'll fix you up.” Petticoat lighted a cigarette and sat down to take Polly's pulse.

“That's right,” he said to the men who brought the things he had sent for, “scuttle back for my rubber gloves, and the chloroform outfit. Tell my man and his helpers to come down—I may need them—and bring me a clean handkerchief.”

“Now for an X-ray,” he said, a little later, as he adjusted his portable X-razor.

“Oh, it's all done,” said Warble, “While you were taking her plood bressure, I cut off her ear—”

“What with?”

“Oh, I had a boning knife and the sardine scissors. It's all right. And I've fixed her hair lovely—in a big curly earmuff, so it will never show at all. Be quiet for a day or so, Polly, and then you'll be all right. The only trouble is, after this, orders will probably go in one ear and out the other—”

“You're a hummer, Warble,” Petticoat said, as they went back up stairs.

“Yes, it had to be done quickly, you see. And it was out of your line, so I duffed in. But one thing bothered me a little. You see, the fire was out, and the cook lighted it with kerosene, and she used such a lot—something might of blew up.”

“And you knew that! You knew that two Petticoats might have been blown up—”

“Sure. Didn't you? Don't faint, pleathe!”