Once when the Little Crippled Girl piped out impulsively, “Say, Peach,—­what was the name of that bantam your father used to fight against the minister’s bantam?” the White Linen Nurse choked piteously over her food.

Twice some one spoke about this year’s weather.

Twice some one volunteered an illuminating remark about last year’s weather.

Except for these four diversions restraint indescribable hung like a horrid pall over the feast.

Next to feeling unwelcome in your friend’s house, nothing certainly is more wretchedly disconcerting than to feel unwelcome in your own house!

Grimly the Senior Surgeon longed to grab up all the knives within reach and ram them successively into his own mouth just to prove to the young Wall Paper Man what a—­what a devil of a good fellow he was himself!  Grimly the Senior Surgeon longed to tell the White Linen Nurse about the pet bantam of his own boyhood days—­that he bet a dollar could lick any bantam her father ever dreamed of owning!  Grimly the Senior Surgeon longed to talk dolls,—­dishes,—­kittens,—­yes, even cream pitchers, to his Little Daughter, to talk anything in fact—­to any one,—­to talk—­sing—­shout anything—­that should make him, at least for the time being, one at heart, one at head, one at table, with this astonishingly offish bunch of youngsters!

But grimly instead,—­out of his frazzled nerves,—­out of his innate spiritual bashfulness, he merely roared forth, “Where are the potatoes?”

“Potatoes?” gasped the White Linen Nurse.  “Potatoes?  Oh, potatoes?” she finished more blithely.  “Why, yes, of course!  Don’t you remember—­you didn’t have time to peel them for me?  I was so disappointed!”

“You were so disappointed?” snapped the Senior Surgeon.  “You?—­you?”

Janglingly the Little Crippled Girl knelt right up in her chair and shook her tiny fist right in her father’s face.

“Now, Lendicott Paber!” she screamed.  “Don’t you start in—­sassing—­my darling little Peach!”

“Peach?” snorted the Senior Surgeon.  With almost supernatural calm he put down his knife and fork and eyed his offspring with an expression of absolutely inflexible purpose.  “Don’t you—­ever,” he warned her, “ever—­ever—­let me hear you call—­this woman ‘Peach’ again!”

A trifle faint-heartedly the Little Crippled Girl reached up and straightened her absurdly diminutive little white cap, and pursed her little mouth as nearly as possible into an expression of ineffable peace.

“Why—­Lendicott Faber!” she persisted heroically.

“Lendicott?” jumped the Senior Surgeon.  “What are you—­’Lendicotting’ me for?”

Hilariously with her own knife and fork the Little Crippled Girl began to beat upon the table.

“Why, you dear Silly!” she cried.  “Why, if I’m the new Marma, I’ve got to call you ‘Lendicott’!  And Peach has got to call you ’Fat Father’!”