throat. "I'm going to get out through a basement window at the
back. I'm going home."

"Home!" Aunt Selina gasped, jumping up and almost dropping her
ammonia bottle. "My dear Bella! Home?"

Jimmy groaned at the foot of the stairs, but Anne Brown was
getting over her tears and now she turned on me in a temper.

"It's all your fault," she said. "I was going to stay at home
and get a little sleep--"

"Well, you can sleep now," Dallas broke in. "There'll be nothing
to do but sleep."

"I think you haven't grasped the situation, Dal," I said icily.
"There will be plenty to do. There isn't a servant in the house!"

"No servants!" everybody cried at once. The Mercer girls stopped
giggling.

"Holy cats!" Max stopped in the act of hanging up his overcoat.
"Do you mean--why, I can't shave myself! I'll cut my head off."

"You'll do more than that," I retorted grimly. "You will carry
coal and tend fires and empty ash pans, and when you are not
doing any of those things there will be pots and pans to wash and
beds to make."

Then there WAS a row. We had worked back to the den now, and I