she was putting violent hands to the throat of the thing.

"The hours I spend with th--" The throttled note expired in a very
dreadful squawk of agony. It was as if foul murder had been done, and
done swiftly. The maddened woman faced me with the potentially evil disk
clutched in her hands. In a voice that is a notable loss to our revivals
of Greek tragedy she declaimed:

"Ain't it the limit?--and the last thing I done was to hide out that
record up behind the clock where he couldn't find it!"

In a sudden new alarm and with three long steps she reached the door of
the kitchen and flung it open. Through a window thus exposed we beheld
the offender. One so seldom thinks of the Chinese as athletes! Lew Wee
was well down the flat toward the cottonwoods and still going strong.

"Ain't it the limit?" again demanded his employer. "Gosh all--excuse me,
but they got me into such a state. Here I am panting like a tuckered
hound. And now I got to make the tea myself. He won't dare come back
before suppertime."

It seemed to be not yet an occasion for words from me. I tried for a
look of intelligent sympathy. In the kitchen I heard her noisily fill a
teakettle with water. She was not herself yet. She still muttered hotly.
I moved to the magazine--littered table and affected to be taken with
the portrait of a smug--looking prize Holstein on the first page of the
_Stock Breeder's Gazette_.

The volcano presently seethed through the room and entered its own
apartment.