She patted the sofa pillows embroidered with "God Bless Our Happy Home" into an engaging fullness of ripe curves, straightened the doily on the easy chair, and singing in a lusty off-keyed falsetto the touching strains of "Blest Be the Tie That Binds," rustled off to the kitchen to fix her boarder a tray. My how the morning had flown. Eleven o'clock already. High time he was up and eating breakfast, the lazy, filthy brute and his dirty tom cat. Such a big strange man. Huge, simply huge. And with a ferocious appetite. She thought he would eat her out of house and home. It cost more than three dollars a week to feed the big lummox. "Our hearts in Christian love," warbled the busy woman as she hastened about the old wainscoted kitchen, banging the spiders and pots loudly enough to wake the dead. He certainly should be up by this time. Almost noon, imagine! And Temperance up and busy since five o'clock. Three boiled eggs, five slices of toast, a whole pot of coffee that held at least five cups, oatmeal in a bowl, cream and sugar, and, well, she might condescend to put one of those rambler roses from over the back stoop upon his tray. Not that he would appreciate it, the filthy, lazy thing. He'd better pay his board bill today or she'd throw him out like dishwater. There, that tray looked nice. Altogether too nice if you asked Temperance Crandall. She whisked off her apron, looked into the kitchen mirror for a second, pushed her hair this way and that, sneaked a pinch of flour out of the flour bin and dusted it on her nose with the corner of a dish towel, then assuming the air of Fox's entire conference of martyrs picked up the tray for prompt delivery. 2 Joe Valentine was dreaming about a cat he had for a mascot in the Spanish American War, about the time the little tabby scratched hell out of the colonel, when the sharp rat-a-tat-tat at his bedroom door awoke him from his slumber. He pulled the covers up around his chest for the sake of modesty, thus exposing his large left foot. He buttoned the two top buttons of his summer underwear. "Come...." "It's just me," said Temperance Crandall. "I hope I ain't intruding upon your privacy." She hesitated a moment on the sill, then boldly entered the room. "Just a bite and a sup," said Temperance. She crossed to the bed to set the tray upon her roomer's unaccustomed lap, then screamed in terror as the black cat rose out of the covers like a bad dream, spitting and scratching. "Horrid thing," she cried. "Evil, nasty thing. You'll be the death of me yet, you two." She took in the room with one scornful glance: the bedspread thrown in one corner, the big shoes on her cedar chest, his clothes in a heap on the floor, a cigar-stub in her hand-painted porcelain pin tray.