"Now, look here," Toffee said kindly. "There's no reason to go on like this. I'll tell you what. Why can't we all cooperate in this thing? We want food and you want to throw us out. Why don't we just compromise? We'll take a table and eat and then we'll let you throw us out. You can make a terrible scene, and we won't say a word." She turned to the Blemishes. "That's fair, isn't it?" "Oh, very," Cecil said enthusiastically. "We're wonderful at being thrown out. We act cowardly as anything, we snivel." "Oh, we snivel beautifully!" Gerald confirmed. "Fine," Toffee said. "Why don't you do a little sniveling right now? Just show the gentleman what he can expect. It's bound to cheer him up." * * * * * Together the Blemishes descended to their knees beside the sobbing maitre de. Then, contorting their faces into expressions of despicable self-abasement, they began to make small damp sounds of cowardly beseechment. Tears began to course down their faces and into their beards. Slowly, the maitre de raised his head and looked around. Then with a cry of purest horror he leaped to his feet and bolted from the room as though pursued by a thousand devils. "I quit!" he screamed as he disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. "I go back to the automat!" "Poor man," Toffee murmured. "Definitely the ulcerous type." She turned to the sniveling Blemishes. "Stop that awful noise and get up." Marc struggled forward under the weight of the urn. "I can't hold out much longer," he said. Supremely unaffected by the horrified silence which had fallen over the room, Toffee turned, surveyed the table accommodations, and sighted a place in the center of the room. "Follow me, men," she said. As the strange party made its way to the middle of the room in sedate silence, heads turned everywhere to follow its progress. Marc just made it to the edge of the table. Toffee and the Blemishes seated themselves as though their arrival had been accomplished in a completely orderly manner. The Blemishes, in a formal mood, didn't bother removing their hats. "What about me?" Marc gasped. "Am I supposed to hold this thing in my lap?" Toffee studied his predicament through thoughtful, half-closed lids. "No," she murmured, "you couldn't do that." She glanced around, at the Wyman's markedly heavy silverware. She promptly picked up her own place setting and dropped it in Marc's pockets. The Blemishes quickly followed suit. A moment later Marc's pockets fairly bulged with purloined silver. The other diners looked on with awed fascination. "Have you ever seen anything so flagrant?" a woman at an adjoining table whispered. "I've heard of people stealing a knife or fork for a souvenir, but ... well ... cleaning out the whole table!" "Even the salt and peppers," her companion observed, half with admiration. "Before they get through there'll be nothing left of this hotel but the hollow shell."