“Come!  Come!” she cried.  “Patty and Mona are nearly killed!  Oh, hurry!  You’ll be too late!”

“Where, where?” cried Roger, while Farnsworth turned white with the sudden shock of Daisy’s words.  He thought some dreadful accident had happened, and fear for Patty’s welfare nearly paralysed him.

“This way!  That way!” screamed Daisy, darting toward the kitchen stairway, and then flying back again.

Down the stairs raced the two men, and into the kitchen.  There they found Patty standing on a side table, armed with a long poker, while Mona danced about on the large table, brandishing a broom in one hand and a mop in the other.  Patty was in paroxysms of laughter at Mona’s antics, but Mona herself was in terror of her life, and yelled like a wild Indian.

“Get down!  Go ’way!” she cried, as an adventurous crab tried, most ineffectually, to climb the table leg.

Roger sprang on to the table beside Mona.  “There, there,” he said, “you rest a while, and I’ll holler for you.  Go ’way!  Get down!  Go ’way, you!”

His imitation of Mona’s frightened voice was so funny Patty began to laugh afresh, and Farnsworth joined her.

“Get up here on my table, Little Billee,” cried Patty.  “You’ll be captured and swallowed alive by these monsters!”

Big Bill sat on the corner of Patty’s table and looked at her.

“You make a charming little housewife,” he said, glancing at the cap and apron.

“Help me, won’t you?” Patty returned, blushing a little, but ignoring his words.  “I’m going to cook the luncheon, and first of all we must boil these crabs.  Can’t you corral them and invite them into that kettle of water?  We had them started in the right direction, but somehow they got away.”

“Right-o!” agreed Bill, and placing the toe of his big shoe gently on a passing crab, he picked it up by the hinge of its left hind leg, and deftly dropped it in the boiling water.

“That’s just the right way!” said Patty, nodding approval.  “I can pick them up that way, too, but there are so many sprinkled around this floor, I’m afraid they’ll pick me up first.”

“Yes, they might, Apple Blossom.  You sit tight, till I round them all up.  Lend a hand, Farrington.”

So Roger poked out the unwilling creatures from their lairs, and Bill assisted them to their destination, while the two girls looked on.

“Good work!” cried Patty as the last shelly specimen disappeared beneath the bubbles.  “Now, they must boil for twenty minutes.  They don’t mind it now.”

The girls came down from their tables, and explained the situation.

“Don’t worry, Mona,” said Farnsworth, in his kind way.  “Patty and I will cook luncheon, and this afternoon I’ll go out and get you a cook if I have to kidnap one.”

“All right, Bill,” said Mona, laughing.  “Come on, Roger, let’s leave these two.  You know too many cooks spoil the broth!”