A few days later Mrs. Budlong's pet Maltese kitten was done to nine
deaths at once by the Disney's fox terrier. Mrs. Budlong mourned the
kitten, but there was consolation in the thought that she could now
cut the Disneys off her list.

Before she could get the kitten decently interred in the back yard,
Mrs. Disney was at the front door. She flung her arms round Mrs.
Budlong and wept, declaring that she had resolved to give the
murderous terrier away to a farmer, and had already sent to Chicago
for a pedigreed Angora to replace the Maltese. It would arrive the
day before Christmas.




IX

WORSE, AND MORE OF IT

As if that were not enough for one day, in the afternoon Johnetta
Ackerley called. She saw Mrs. Budlong at an upper window and waved to
her as she came along the walk. When the cook arrived upstairs like a
grand piano moving in, Mrs. Budlong said in an icy tone:

"Not at home."

"But I told her you was. And she seen you at the windy."

"Not!--at!--home!"