The whole house was helping, in a passionate publicity; for every one in it loved Laura. Mr. Baxter, the landlord, was on the staircase, bringing Laura's boots. The maid of all work was leaning out of the window on the landing, brushing Laura's skirt. A tall girl was standing by the table in the sitting-room. She had a lean, hectic face, and prominent blue eyes under masses of light hair. She was Addy Ranger, the type-writer on the ground-floor, who had come up from her typewriting to see what she could do. She was sewing buttons on Laura's blouse while Jane brought pressure upon Laura. "Of course you're going," Jane was saying. "It's not as if you had a birthday every day." For Laura still sat at her writing-table, labouring over a paragraph, white lipped and heavy eyed. Shuffling all over the room and round about her was Mr. Gunning. He was pouring out the trouble that had oppressed him for the last four years. "She won't stop scribbling. It's scribble--scribble--scribble all day long. If I didn't lie awake to stop her she'd be at it all night. I've caught her--in her nightgown. She'll get out of her bed to do it." "Papa, dear, you know Miss Lempriere and Mr. Prothero?" His mind adjusted itself instantly to its vision of them. He bowed to each. He was the soul of courtesy and hospitality, and they were his guests; they had come to luncheon. "Lolly, my dear, have you ordered luncheon?--You must tell Mrs. Baxter to give us a salmon mayonnaise, and a salad and lamb cutlets in aspic. And, Lolly! Tell her to put a bottle of champagne in ice." For in his blessed state, among the fragments of old splendours that still clung to him, Mr. Gunning had preserved indestructibly his sense of power to offer his friends a bottle of champagne on a suitable occasion, and every occasion now ranked with him as suitable. "Yes, darling," said Laura, and dashed down a line of her paragraph. He shuffled feebly toward the door. "I have to see to everything myself," he said. "That child there has no more idea how to order a luncheon than the cat. There should be," he reverted, "lamb cutlets in aspic. I must see to it myself." He wandered out of the room and in again, driven, by his dream. "Oh," cried Laura, "somebody else must have my birthday. _I_ can't have it. I must sit tight and finish my paragraph." "You'll spoil it if you do," said Prothero. "Besides spoiling everybody's day," said Jane judiciously. That brought Laura round. She reflected that, if she sat tight from ten that evening till two in the morning, she could save their day. But first she had to finish her paragraph and then to hide it and lock it up. Then she put the pens and ink on a high shelf out of Mr. Gunning's reach. He had been known to make away with the materials of Lolly's detestable occupation when he got the chance. He attributed to it that mysterious, irritating semblance of poverty in which they moved. He smiled at her, a happy, innocent smile.