"I'm done for, Kit," he groaned. "Bella went up to the studio
after we left, and investigated that corner."

"What did she find? The necklace?" I asked eagerly. He was too
wretched to notice this.

"No, that picture of you that I did last winter. She is
crazy--she says she is going upstairs and sit in Takahiro's room
and take smallpox and die."

"Fiddlesticks!" I said rudely, and somebody hammered on the door
and opened it.

"Pardon me for disturbing you," Bella said, in her best
dear-me-I'm-glad-I-knocked manner. "But--Flannigan says the
dinner has not come."

"Good Lord!" Jim exclaimed. "I forgot to order the confounded
dinner!"

It was eight o'clock by that time, and as it took an hour at
least after telephoning the order, everybody looked blank when
they heard. The entire family, except Mr. Harbison, who had not
appeared again, escorted Jim to the telephone and hung around
hungrily, suggesting new dishes every minute. And then--he
couldn't raise Central. It was fifteen minutes before we gave up,
and stood staring at one another despairingly.

"Call out of a window, and get one of those infernal reporters to