Sylvia had cooking-stoves in both the old shop and the kitchen. The
kitchen stove was kept well polished, and seldom used for cooking,
except in cold weather. In warm weather the old shop served as
kitchen, and Sylvia, in deference to the high-school teacher, used to
set the table in the house.

When Henry neared the house he smelled cooking in the shop. He also
had a glimpse of a snowy table-cloth in the kitchen. He wondered,
with a throb of joy, if possibly Horace might have returned before
his vacation was over and Sylvia were setting the table in the other
room in his honor. He opened the door which led directly into the
shop. Sylvia, a pathetic, slim, elderly figure in rusty black, was
bending over the stove, frying flapjacks. "Has he come home?"
whispered Henry.

"No, it's Mr. Meeks. I asked him to stay to supper. I told him I
would make some flapjacks, and he acted tickled to death. He doesn't
get a decent thing to eat once in a dog's age. Hurry and get washed.
The flapjacks are about done, and I don't want them to get cold."

Henry's face, which had fallen a little when he learned that Horace
had not returned, still looked brighter than before. While Sidney
Meeks never let him have the last word, yet he was much better than
Sylvia as a safety-valve for pessimism. Meeks was as pessimistic in
his way as Henry, although he handled his pessimism, as he did
everything else, with diplomacy, and the other man had a secret
conviction that when he seemed to be on the opposite side yet he was
in reality pulling with the lawyer.

Sidney Meeks was older than Henry, and as unsuccessful as a country