I was some little prophet, too. I expect Mrs. Robert hadn't been havin' much worse a time with her help than most folks, but three cooks inside of ten days was goin' some. Lots of people had been longer'n that without any, though. But when any pot wrestler can step into a munition works or an airplane factory and pull down her three or four dollars a day for an eight-hour shift, what can you expect? Answer: What we got that night at the Ellinses'. The soup had been scorched once, but it had been cooled off nicely before it got to us. The fish had been warmed through--barely. And the roast lamb tasted like it had been put through an embalmin' process. But the cookin' was high art compared to the service, for since their butler had quit to become a crack riveter in a shipyard they've been havin' maids do their plate jugglin'. And this wide-built fairy, with the eyes that didn't track, sure was constructed for anything but glidin' graceful around a dinner table. For one thing, she had the broken-arch roll in her gait, and when she pads in through the swing-door she's just as easy in her motion as a cow walkin' the quarter-deck with a heavy sea runnin'. Every now and then she'd scuff her toe in the rug, and how some of us escaped a soup or a gravy bath I can't figure out. Maybe we were in luck. Also, she don't mind reachin' in front of you and sidewipin' your ear with her elbow. Accidents like that were merry little jokes to her. "Ox-cuse me, Mister!" she'd pipe out shrill and childish, and then indulged in a maniac giggle that would get Mrs. Robert grippin' the chair arms. She liked to be chatty and folksy while she was servin', too. Her motto seemed to be, "Eat hearty and give the house a good name." If you didn't, she tried to coax you into it, or it into you. "Oh, do have some more of th' meat, Miss," she says to Vee. "And another potato, now. Just one more, Miss." And all Mrs. Robert can do is pink up, and when she's out of hearin' apologize for her. "As you see," says Mrs. Robert, "she is hardly a trained waitress." "She'd make a swell auctioneer, though," I suggests. "No doubt," says Mrs. Robert. "And I suppose I am fortunate enough to have anyone in the kitchen at all, even to do the cooking--such as it is." "You ain't lonesome in feelin' that way," says I. "It seems to be a general complaint." Which brings out harrowin' tales of war-wrecked homes, where no buttling had been done for months, where chauffeurs and gardeners were only represented by stars on the service flag, and from which even personal maids had gone to be stenographers and nurses. But chiefly it was the missin' cook who was mourned. Some had quit to follow their men to trainin' camps, a lot had copped out better payin' jobs, and others had been lured to town, where they could get the fake war extras hot off the press and earn higher wages as well.