know."

"I know; skittle."

Left alone, Warble proceeded systematically to examine the interior of
Ptomaine Haul. She gazed about her own bedroom and a small part of
its exquisite beauty dawned upon her. It was an exact copy of Marie
Antoinette's and the delicately carved furniture and pale blue upholstery
and hangings harmonized with the painted domed ceiling and paneled walls.

The dressing table bore beautiful appointments of ivory, as solid as
Warble's own dome and from the Cupid-held canopy over the bed to the
embroidered satin foot-cushions, it was top hole.

The scent was of French powders, perfumes and essences and sachets, such as
Warble had not smelled since before the war.

"Can you beat it," she groaned. "How can I live with doodads like this?"
She saw the furniture as a circle of hungry restaurant customers ready to
eat her up. She kicked the dozen lace pillows off the head of the bed.

"No utility anywhere," she cried. "Everything futile, inutile, brutal! I
hate it! I hate it! Why did I ever--"

And then she remembered she was a Petticoat now, a lace, frilled
Petticoat--not one of those that Oliver Herford so pathetically dubbed "the
short and simple flannels of the poor."

Yes, she was now a Petticoat--one of the aristocratic Cotton-Petticoats,
washable, to be sure, but a dressy Frenchy Petticoat, and as such she must