"Well," said the president, rising, "I must look into this. I will take the matter up with the owners." "Good morning," I said. "I will tell Mr. Jardine that you called." "Yes, do," he said, hurriedly putting on his hat, and then taking it off again. "Good morning. Mr. Jardine will hear from me." "I hope so," I said to myself as Mary closed the door. "We never have before." The owners called next, singly and in couples. We were delighted to meet them, for we were convinced that we never would have had the pleasure of their acquaintance under any other circumstances. After more interviews and letters than any $27 ever occasioned before, we finally received a letter stating that our claim had been allowed, and they enclosed a receipt in full for November's rent. Nobody believed us when we told them, and we nearly wore the letter out exhibiting it. It is worn at the folding places now from much handling, like an autograph letter of Lincoln's or Washington's. During the following year a new firm of agents took possession of us, who knew us not, so that the next October, when we wanted heat, the same patronizing manner greeted the Angel when he telephoned for permission to have the janitor light the furnaces. "Oh, no. Oh, no, Mr.--er--Really, we couldn't consider such a request," came a voice. "Look here," said Aubrey. "I am the man who went to the Waldorf last year when the agent refused us heat and took twenty-seven dollars out of the rent. You may have heard of me." "What name, sir? Oh, Jardine! Yes, Mr. Jardine, you shall have heat within an hour." The next morning the janitor--also a new one by the way--told the Angel that he got a telephone message from the agent to start a fire in the furnace if he had to tear off wooden doors and burn them! "All of which goes to show," said Aubrey to me, "that somebody ought to write a book on 'The Value of the Kicker.'" CHAPTER V HOW WE TAMED THE COOK Second only to the skill required in managing a husband is the diplomacy necessary in the art of living with one's cook. Therefore let the unmarried pass this over, feeling that the time for them to read it is not yet, but let those who have a cross-grained, crotchety, obstinate, or bad-tempered cook take this to a quiet corner and hear my tale. While it may not be exactly your experience it cannot fail to touch a responsive chord, for whether you have already had a spoiled cook or not, rest assured that you will have one some day, and do not scorn to make her the subject of deep and earnest study and the object of diplomatic negotiations.