CHAPTER VI

Warble's own maid was named Beer.

A French thing--so slim she seemed nothing but a spine, but supplied with
slender, talkative arms and a pair of delicate silk legs that displayed
more or less of themselves as the daily hint from Paris reported skirts
going up or down as the case might be.

A scant black costume and a touch of white apron completed the picture,
and Warble played with her as a child with a new doll.

Beer wanted to patronize Warble, tried to do so, but found it impossible.
Her patronage rolled off of Mrs. Bill Petticoat like hard sauce off a hot
apple dumpling.

"Do you get enough to eat, Beer?" her mistress asked her.

"Wee, maddum," the maid replied, in her pretty War French. "I eat but a
small."

"Well, don't drop to pieces, that's all," warned Warble. As to personal
care and adornment the hitherto neglected education of Warble Petticoat
was in Beer's hands. And she handed it out with unstinted lavishness.

That was the way things came to Warble; in slathers--in big fat chunks. In
avalanches and rushing torrents.

Beer engineered all her new wardrobe, and received sealed proposals for