't good enough
for me. You've conducted me to a shack instead of the hotel I was
promised, and I await your explanation. Meanwhile, is there any supper?"

CHAPTER XXVII

It was only a fortnight after this that the inn was ready to be opened,
and it was only during the first days of this fortnight that the party
in the shanty had to endure any serious discomfort. The twins didn't
mind the physical discomfort at all; what they minded, and began to mind
almost immediately, was the spiritual discomfort of being at such close
quarters with Mrs. Bilton. They hardly noticed the physical side of that
close association in such a lovely climate, where the whole of
out-of-doors can be used as one's living-room; and their morning
dressing, a difficult business in the shanty for anybody less young and
more needing to be careful, was rather like the getting up of a dog
after its night's sleep--they seemed just to shake themselves, and there
they were.

They got up before Mrs. Bilton, who was, however, always awake and
talking to them while they dressed, and they went to bed before she did,
though she came up with them after the first night and read aloud to
them while they undressed; so that as regarded the mysteries of Mrs.
Bilton's toilette they were not, after all, much in her way. It was like
caravaning or camping out: you managed your movements and moments
skilfully, and if you were Mrs. Bilton you had a curtain slung across
your part of the room, in case your younger charges shouldn't always be
asleep when they looked as if they were.

Gradually one alleviation was added to another, and Mrs. Bilton forgot
the rigours of the beginning. Li Koo arrived, for instance, fetched by a
telegram, and under a tent in the eucalyptus grove at the back of the
house set up an old iron stove and produced, with no apparent exertion,
extraordinarily interesting and amusing food. He went into Acapulco at
daylight every morning and did the marketing. He began almost
immediately to do everything else in the way of housekeeping. He was
exquisitely clean, and saw to it that the shanty matched him in
cleanliness. To the surprise and gratification of the twins, who had
supposed it would be their lot to go on doing the housework of the
shanty, he took it over as a matter of course, dusting, sweeping, and
tidying like a practised and very excellent housemaid. The only thing he
refused to do was to touch the three beds in the upper chamber. "M