"You know how I feel on that subject," said I. "This business of going into another person's house as a guest and inducing their servants to leave is an infraction of the laws of hospitality. How would you like it if Mrs. Gaster stole me away from you?" Henriette's answer was a puzzling smile. "You are free to better your condition, Bunny," she said. "But I am not going to rob Mrs. Innitt, as I told you once before. She will discharge Norah and I will take her, that's all; so do be a good boy and bring me the nail and gravel and the hair-pins and the automobile nut." I secured the desired articles for my mistress, and the next evening she went to Mrs. Innitt's little dinner to Miss Gullet and her fiance, Lord Dullpate, eldest son of the Duke of Lackshingles, who had come over to America to avoid the scrutiny of the Bankruptcy Court, taking the absurd objects with her. Upon her return at 2 A.M. she was radiant and triumphant. "I won out, Bunny--I won out!" she cried. "How?" I inquired. "Mrs. Innitt has discharged Norah, though I begged her not to," she fairly sang. "On what grounds?" "Several," said Henriette, unfastening her glove. "To begin with, there was a rusty nail in my clam cocktail, and it nearly choked me to death. I tried hard to keep Mrs. Innitt from seeing what had happened, but she is watchful if not brainy, and all my efforts went for naught. She was much mortified of course and apologized profusely. All went well until the fish, when one of the two hair-pins turned up in the pompano to the supreme disgust of my hostess, who was now beginning to look worried. Hair-pin number two made its debut in my timbale. This was too much for the watchful Mrs. Innitt, self-poised though she always is, and despite my remonstrances she excused herself from the table for a moment, and I judge from the flushed appearance of her cheeks when she returned five minutes later that somebody had had the riot act read to her somewhere. "'I don't understand it at all, Mrs. Van Raffles,' she said with a sheepish smile. 'Cook's perfectly sober. If anything of the kind ever happens again she shall go.'" "Even as Mrs. Innitt spoke I conveyed a luscious morsel of filet mignon with mushrooms to my mouth and nearly broke my tooth on a piece of gravel that went with it, and Norah was doomed, for although we all laughed heartily, the thing had come to be such a joke, it was plain from the expression of Mrs. Innitt's countenance that she was very, very angry. "'Forgive her this time for my sake, Mrs. Innitt,' I pleaded. 'After all it is the little surprises that give zest to life.'" "And you didn't have to use the automobile nut?" I asked, deeply impressed with the woman's ingenuity.