Meals were never ready on time, and the dinner-hour, instead of being a fixed time beneath her sway, seemed to become a variable point, according to the lady's whim. In the observance of the breakfast-hour she was equally erratic, and on several trying occasions Brinley was on the verge of the dilemma of either failing to keep an appointment in town or going without his morning meal. Sometimes the coffee would come to the table a thin, amber fluid that tasted like particularly bad consommé. Again it would be served with all the thickness of a _purée_. Her bread was similarly variable in its undesirability. There were biscuits that held all the flaky charm of a snowball. There were loaves of bread that reminded one of the stories of hardtack in Cuba during the late unpleasantness. There were English muffins that rested upon poor Brinley's digestion as the world may fairly be presumed to rest upon the shoulders of Atlas, and, indeed, it is a tradition in the Brinley family that one of this cook's pie-crusts rivalled Harveyized steel in its impenetrability. Indeed, Brinley, usually a silent sufferer, commented upon this cohesive quality of Ellen's pastry on two different occasions. On the first he advised Mrs. Brinley to learn the secret of Ellen's manipulation of the ingredients of a pie-crust, and have herself capitalized to rival the corporations which provide the government with armor-plate. On the second he made the sage though disagreeable remark that the "next apple-pie we have should be served with individual steam-drills." And he one day accompanied Mrs. Brinley to a quiet golf links, and, when he had teed up, that good lady observed one of Ellen's doughnuts upon the little mound of sand before him instead of his favorite ball. "I cut up the Silverton ball so," he said, as he addressed the tee, "that I'm ashamed of myself. I may not play any better with this doughnut, but it will never show the marks of the irons as a bit of mere gutta-percha would." "If you feel that way about Ellen," Mrs. Brinley observed, just as Brinley was about to drive off with a real ball, "I don't see why you don't discharge her." Brinley took his eye off the ball to look indignantly upon his wife, and consequently foozled. "Discharge her? Why should I discharge her?" he demanded, his temper growing as he observed where he had landed his ball. "I'm not running the house, my dear. You are. I didn't ask you to tell Miss Flossie Fairfax that, as she couldn't spell, she was no longer useful as a stenographer in the office of Brinley & Rutherford. Why should you ask me to tell a cook that her services are no longer required in the establishment of Brinley & Brinley, of which you are the manager?" "It isn't easy to discharge a girl," Mrs. Brinley began. "Particularly a quarrelsome woman like Ellen." "Oh, that's it," said Brinley. "You are afraid of her." "Not exactly," said Mrs. Brinley. "But--"