Charmian was troubled to decide what was truly Bohemian to eat, when
they became hungry over their work. She provided candy and chocolate in
all their forms and phases, but all girls ate candy and chocolate, and
they were so missish, and so indistinctive, and they both went so badly
with tea, which she must have because of the weird effect of the
spirit-lamp under the kettle, that she disused them after the first
week. There remained always crackers, which went with anything, but the
question was what to have with them. Their natural association with
cheese was rejected because Charmian said she should be ashamed to
offer Mr. Ludlow those insipid little Neufchatel things, which were
made in New Jersey, anyway, and the Gruyere smelt so, and so did
Camembert; and pine-apple cheese was Philistine. There was nothing for
it but olives, and though olives had no savor of originality, the
little crescent ones were picturesque, and if you picked them out of
the bottle with the end of a brush-handle, sharpened to a point, and
the other person received them with their thumb and finger, the whole
act was indisputably Bohemian.
There was one day when they all got on particularly well, and Charmian
boldly ordered some champagne for a burst. The man brought back
Apollinaris water, and she was afraid to ask why, for fear he should
say Mrs. Maybough sent it. Ludlow said he never took champagne, and was
awfully glad of the Apollinaris, and so the change was a great success,
for neither Charmian nor Cornelia counted, in any case; they both hated
every kind of wine.
Another time, Cornelia, when she came, found Charmian lighting one of
the cigars kept for show on her mantel. She laughed wildly at
Cornelia's dismay, and the smoke, which had been going up her nose,
went down her throat in a volume, and Cornelia had to run and catch
her; she was reaching out in every direction for help.
Cornelia led her to the couch, which was still waiting its rugs to
become a bed, and she lay down there, very pale and still, and was
silent a long time, till Cornelia said, "Now, if I could find a moose
somewhere to run over you," and they both burst into a shriek of
laughter.
"But I'm going to _learn_" Charmian declared. "Where did that cigar
go?" She sprang up to look for it, but they never could find it, and
they decided it must have gone into the fire, and been burnt up; that
particular cigar seemed essential to the experiment, or at least
Charmian did not try another.
They were both very grave after Ludlow came. When he went away, he
said, with an absent look at Charmian, "You have a magnificent pallor
to-day, Miss Maybough, and I must compliment you on keeping much
quieter than usual."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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