“Yassum.  Seemed lak I bemember he tell me it was impo’tant.”

“Serves him right for not telling me.”

“It suttinly am queer the way he can’t bemember.  Seem lak his haid so full of figgers, or what you call them, ain’ no room for nuthin’ else.”

“You and father get zero in memory—­that’s sure.”

“I ain’t got no trubble dat way, Miss Bambi.  I bemember everything, ’cepting wot you tell me to bemember.”

The dining-room door flew open at this point, and a handsome youth, with his hair upstanding, and his clothes in a wrinkle, appeared on the threshold.  Bambi rose and started for him.

“Jarvis!” she exclaimed.  “What has happened?  Where have you been?”

“Sleeping in the garden.”

“Dat’s it—­dat’s it!  Dat was wat I was to remin’ the Perfessor of, dat a man was sleepin’ in the garden.”

“Sleeping in our garden?  But why?”

“Because of the filthy commercialism of this age!  Here I am, at the climax of my big play, a revolutionary play, I tell you, teeming with new and vital ideas, for a people on the down-slide, and a landlady, a puny, insignificant ant of a female, interrupts me to demand money, and when I assure her, most politely, that I have none, she puts me out, actually puts me out!”

Bambi choked back a laugh.

“Why didn’t you come here?”

“I did.  Your father refused to see me; he was working at his crazy figures.  I burst in, and demanded you, but he couldn’t remember where you had gone.”

“What a pity!  Well——­”

“I told him I would wait in the garden.  If necessary, I would sleep there.”

“Yas’m, yas’m, dat’s when he called me in, to tell me to bemin’ him.”

“That will do, Ardelia.”

“Yassum,” said the handmaiden, and withdrew.

“Now, go on.”

“I was full of my big act, so I walked and walked for hours.  Then I lay down in the summer-house, and I must have gone to sleep.”

“Go up and take a bath, and come down to some breakfast.  I will send Ardelia to get some of father’s things for you if you need them.”

“All right, but don’t delay with breakfast.  If I don’t get this act down, I may lose it.  That fiend, in female guise, held my paper.”

“Go on!  Get ready!”

He plunged out, and Bambi went to send Ardelia to him, while she cooked his eggs and fried his bacon.  As she worked, she smiled, out of sheer amusement.

In due course of time, he appeared, freshened up, and with renewed eagerness to be at work.  He scarcely noticed Bambina as she served his breakfast.  He ate as if he were starved.

“I suppose the landlady held your clothes?”

“I don’t know.  I didn’t ask.  It was unimportant.”

“How much do you owe her?”

He looked at her in surprise.

“I have no idea.”

“Have you any money at all?”