“The house people are waiting for Dick,” he said to me, “and about forty women are crocheting in the lobby, so they’ll be sure to see him.  Won’t some of them know it isn’t Dick?”

I thought pretty fast.

“He hasn’t been around much lately,” I said.  “Nobody would know except Mrs. Wiggins.  She’ll never forget him; the last time he was here he put on her false front like a beard and wore it down to dinner.”

“Then it’s all off,” he groaned.  “She’s got as many eyes as a potato.”

“And about as much sense,” said I.  “Fiddlesticks!  She’s not so good we can’t replace her, and what’s the use of swallowing a camel and then sticking at a housekeeper?”

“You can’t get her out of the house in an hour,” he objected, but in a weak voice.

“I can!” I said firmly.

(I did.  Inside of an hour she went to the clerk, Mr. Slocum, and handed in her resignation.  She was a touchy person, but I did not say all that was quoted.  I did not say the kitchen was filthy; I only said it took away my appetite to look in at the door.  But she left, which is the point.)

Well, I stood in the doorway and watched them disappear in the darkness, and I felt better than I had all day.  It’s great to be able to do something, even if that something is wrong.  But as I put on my shawl and turned out the lights, I suddenly remembered.  Miss Patty would be waiting in the lobby for Mr. Dick, and she would not be crocheting!

CHAPTER VII.

MR. PIERCE ACQUIRES A WIFE

Whoever has charge of the spring-house at Hope Springs takes the news stand in the evening.  That’s an old rule.  The news stand includes tobacco and a circulating library, and is close to the office, and if I missed any human nature at the spring I got it there.  If you can’t tell all about a man by the way he asks for mineral water and drinks it, by the time you’ve supplied his literature and his tobacco and heard him grumbling over his bill at the office, you’ve got a line on him and a hook in it.

After I ate my supper I relieved Amanda King, who runs the news stand in the daytime, when she isn’t laid off with the toothache.

Mr. Sam was right.  All the women had on their puffs, and they were sitting in a half-circle on each side of the door.  Mrs. Sam was there, looking frightened and anxious, and standing near the card-room door was Miss Patty.  She was all in white, with two red spots on her cheeks, and I thought if her prince could have seen her then he would pretty nearly have eaten her up.  Mr. Thoburn was there, of course, pretending to read the paper, but every now and then he looked at his watch, and once he got up and paced off the lobby, putting down the length in his note-book.  I didn’t need a mind-reader to tell me he was figuring the cost of a new hardwood floor and four new rugs.