The tea tasted like boiled hay. It was called English breakfast tea, probably because the English would never think of drinking it, and if they did, they would never drink it at breakfast time. But it was hot and wet--two qualities that are sufficient for those who have not mastered the sublime art of tea-drinking. Letitia scarcely touched her breakfast. She immersed herself in the advertising columns of the morning newspaper, and was quite hidden behind the sheet. I was in that odious humor when, to be looked at as I ate, was unendurable--something simply not to be borne with equanimity. I was glad that Letitia couldn't see me, for while she wasn't looking I did very nicely, and ate my team of boiled eggs with relish! If Letitia had been looking at me, I should have left them both. One can not always account for the morning mood. And yet I have never been called a "crank." "Archie," she said suddenly (and I quickly hid the egg-shells so that she should not remark upon my strangely-found appetite), "I think I've got it at last. It really looks as though there were a way out of our difficulties. But I do wish, dear boy, that you would try to eat." She glanced at my plate. She saw the egg-shells. The rolls, butter, tea, had all disappeared. I felt a flush mount to my brow. Had I been detected in the commission of a crime, I could not have looked more uncomfortable. "Oh, I see you have managed to do very well," she said in a pleased voice, without a vestige of sarcasm. "In fact"--with a smile--"if you do as well as that, without an appetite, I am quite unable to imagine what you would do with one. You are a healthy boy--healthy but silly." "Well, Letitia," I murmured abjectly, "you were reading, and paying no attention to me--I might have been down at the Battery for all you cared--so I had to do something in self-defense." "Don't apologize," said Letitia, and this time there was an intonation of ill-timed jocularity in her voice. "I am glad you were hungry, and I wish that I had been. I've eaten nothing, and you don't even notice it. You don't urge me to eat. It doesn't matter." "Letitia!" I cried reproachfully. "Please--please--" She laughed. "I'm teasing you, Archie, and I didn't mean to do so. You are such a lovely subject for persecution that I can't resist the temptation. But--bother our appetites. I have forgotten the present and am looking into the future. Here is a little advertisement that will, I think, put an end to our anguish. Listen--" She took a pencil and marked round the following, which she then proceeded to read aloud: "Irish widow lady, with one child, wants position as cook, in small refined family, of Christian principles. Good home preferred to big wages. Call 33 Sixth Avenue. Mrs. McCaffrey. Up one flight."