"And unappetizing!" I chimed in.

"Of course--certainly unappetizing. I couldn't think of anything Swedish
to say, but I said several things in English. She was dreadfully sorry
that you had seen her, and never contemplated such a possibility. After
all, Archie, bathing is not a crime."

"And we were hunting for a clean slate," I suggested satirically. "Do
you think, Letitia, that she also takes a cold bath in the morning,
among the bacon and eggs, and things?"

"That is enough," said Letitia sternly. "The episode need not serve as
an excuse for indelicacy."

It was with the advent of Gerda Lyberg that we became absolutely
certain, beyond the peradventure of any doubt, that there was such a
thing as the servant question. The knowledge had been gradually wafted
in upon us, but it was not until the lady from Stockholm had
definitively planted herself in our midst that we admitted to ourselves
openly, unblushingly, that the problem existed. Gerda blazoned forth the
enigma in all its force and defiance.

The remarkable thing about our latest acquisition was the singularly
blank state of her gastronomic mind. There was nothing that she knew.
Most women, and a great many men, intuitively recognize the physical
fact that water, at a certain temperature, boils. Miss Lyberg,
apparently seeking to earn her living in the kitchen, had no certain
views as to when the boiling point was reached. Rumors seemed vaguely to
have reached her that things called eggs dropped into water would, in
the course of time--any time, and generally less than a week--become