Rooms, we contend, like people, should be considered in relation to that state in which it has pleased Providence to place them.  To consider number fourteen in any environment save its own would be manifestly unfair since, in relation to all the other rooms at the Imperial, number fourteen was a good room, perhaps the very best.  A description tempts us, but perhaps its best description is to be found in its effect upon Dr. Callandar.  That effect was an immediate determination to depart by the next train, provided the next train did not leave before he had had something to eat.

He was aroused from gloomy musings by a discreet tap announcing the return of the scouting party.  The scouting party was piled with parcels up to its round eyes and from the parcels issued an odour so delicious that the doctor’s depression vanished.

“Good hunting, eh?”

“Prime, sir.  ’Tisn’t store stuff, either!  As soon as I see that look in your eye I remembered ’bout the tea-fight over at Knox’s Church last night and how they’d be sure to be selling off what’s left, for the benefit of the heathen.”  The boy gave the roundest wink Callandar had ever seen and deposited his parcels upon the bed.  “They always have ’bout forty times as much’s they can use.  Course I didn’t get you any broken vittles,” he added, noticing the alarm upon the doctor’s face.  “It’s all as good as the best.  Wait till you see!”

He began to clear the wash-stand in a businesslike manner, talking all the time.  “This here towel will do for a cloth.  It’s bran’ clean—­cross my heart!  I borrowed a dish or two offen the church.  They know me....  We’ll put the chicken in the middle and the ham along at this end and the pie over there where it can’t slip off—­”

“I don’t like pie, boy.”

“I do.  Pie’s good for you.  We’ll put the beet salad by the chicken and the cabbage salad by the ham and the chow-chow betwixt ’em.  Then the choc’late cake can go by the pie—­”

“Boy, I don’t like chocolate cake.”

“Honest?  Ah, you’re kiddin’ me!  Really?  Choc’late cake’s awful good for you.  I love chocolate cake.  This here cake was made by Esther Coombe’s Aunt Amy—­it’s a sure winner!  Say, Mister, what do you like anyway?”

“Ever so many more things than I did yesterday.  By Jove, that chicken looks good!”

“Yep.  That’s Mrs. Hallard’s chicken.  I thought you’d want the best.  She ris’ it herself.  And made the stuffin’ too.”

“Did she ‘ris’ the ham also?”

“Nope.  It’s Miss Taylor’s ham.  Home cured.  The minister thinks a whole lot of Miss Taylor’s curin’.  Ma thinks that if Miss Taylor wasn’t quite so hombly, minister might ask her jest on account of the ham.  You try it—­wait a jiffy till I sneak some knives!”