“I’m thinkin’,” he said once, stopping with a dish in the air, “what a deuce of a noise there will be when the vaccination doctor comes around this mornin’. In a week every one of us will be nursin’ a sore arm or walkin’ on one leg, beggin’ your pardon, miss. The last time the force was vaccinated, I asked to be done behind me ear; I needed me legs and I needed me arms, but didn’t need me head much!” He threw his head back and laughed. Mr. Harbison laughed. Oh, we were very cheerful! And that awful stove stared at me, and the kettle began to hum, and Aunt Selina sent down word that she was not well, and would like some omelet on her tray. Omelet! I knew that it was made of eggs, but that was the extent of my knowledge. I muttered an excuse and ran upstairs to Anne, but she was still sniffling over her necklace, and said she didn’t know anything about omelets and didn’t care. Food would choke her. Neither of the Mercer girls knew either, and Bella, who was still reading in the den, absolutely declined to help. “I don’t know, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did. You can get yourself out, as you got yourself in,” she said nastily. “The simplest thing, if you don’t mind my suggesting it, is to poison the coffee and kill the lot of us. Only, if you decide to do it, let me know; I want to live just long enough to see Jimmy Wilson WRITHE!” Bella is the kind of person who gets on one’s nerves. She finds a grievance and hugs it; she does ridiculous things and blames other people. And she flirts. I went downstairs despondently, and found that Mr. Harbison had discovered some eggs and was standing helplessly staring at them. “Omelet--eggs. Eggs--omelet. That’s the extent of my knowledge,” he said, when I entered. “You’ll have to come to my assistance.” It was then that I saw the cook book. It was lying on a shelf beside the clock, and while Mr. Harbison had his back turned I got it down. It was quite clear that the domestic type of woman was his ideal, and I did not care to outrage his belief in me. So I took the cook book into the pantry and read the recipe over three times. When I came back I knew it by heart, although I did not understand it. “I will tell you how,” I said with a great deal of dignity, “and since you want to help, you may make it yourself.” He was delighted. “Fine!” he said. “Suppose you give me the idea first. Then we’ll go over it slowly, bit by bit. We’ll make a big fluffy omelet, and if the others aren’t around, we’ll eat it ourselves.” “Well,” I said, trying to remember exactly, “you take two eggs--” “Two!” he repeated. “Two eggs for ten people!” “Don’t interrupt me,” I said irritably. “If--if two isn’t enough we can make several omelets, one after the other.” He looked at me with admiration. “Who else but you would have thought of that!” he remarked. “Well, here are two eggs. What next?”