Early in the morning, too, I overheard a scrap of conversation
between the policeman and our gentleman adventurer from South
America. Something had gone wrong with the telephone and Mr.
Harbison was fussing over it with a screw driver and a pair of
scissors--all the tools he could find. Flannigan was lifting rugs
to shake them on the roof--Bella's order.

"Wash the table linen!" he was grumbling. "I'll do what I can
that's necessary. Grub has to be cooked, and dishes has to be
washed--I'll admit that. If you're particular, make up your bed
every day; I don't object. But don't tell me we have to use
thirty-three table napkins a day. What did folks do before
napkins was invented? Tell me that!"--triumphantly.

"What's the answer?" Mr. Harbison inquired absently, evidently
with the screw driver in his mouth.

"Used their pocket handkerchiefs! And if the worst comes to the
worst, Mr. Harbison, these folks here can use their sleeves, for
all I care--not that the women has any sleeves to speak of. Wash
clothes I will not."

"Well, don't worry Mrs. Wilson about it," the other voice said.
Flannigan straightened himself with a grunt.

"Mrs. Wilson!" he said. "A lot she would worry. She's been a
disappointment to me, Mr. Harbison, me thinking that now she'd
come back to him, after leavin' him the way she did, they'd be
like two turtle doves. Lord! The cook next door--"