le at a time and
everything cooked to a turn."

"That's just it," said I. "I hear enough at the club to know just what
cinches Mrs. Innitt's position. It's her cook, that's what does it. If
she lost her cook she'd be Mrs. Outofit. There never were such pancakes,
such purees, such made dishes as that woman gets up. She turns hash into
a confection and liver and bacon into a delicacy. Corned-beef in her
hands is a discovery and her sauces are such that a bit of roast
rhinoceros hide tastes like the tenderest of squab when served by her.
No wonder Mrs. Innitt holds her own. A woman with a cook like Norah
Sullivan could rule an empire."

A moment later I was sorry I had spoken, for my words electrified her.

"_I must have her!_" cried Henriette.

"What, Mrs. Innitt?" I asked.

"No--her cook," said Henriette.

I stood aghast. Full of sympathy as I had always been with the projects
of Mrs. Van Raffles, and never in the least objecting on moral grounds
to any of her schemes of acquisition, I could not but think that this
time she proposed to go too far. To rob a millionaire of his bonds, a
national bank of its surplus, a philanthropist of a library, or a
Metropolitan Boxholder of a diamond stomacher, all that seemed
reasonable to me and proper according to my way of looking at it, but to
rob a neighbor of her cook--if there is any worse social crime than that
I don't know what it is.

"You'd better think twice on that proposition, Henriette," I advised
with a gloomy shake of the head. "It is not only a mean crime, but a
dangerous one to boot. Success would in itself bring ruin. Mrs. Innitt
would never forgive you, and society at large--"

"Society at large would dine with me instead of with Mrs. Innitt, that's
all," said Henriette. "I mean to have her before the season's over."

"Well, I draw the line at stealing a cook," said I, coldly. "I've robbed
churches and I've made way with fresh-air funds, and I've helped you in
many another legitimate scheme, but in this, Mrs. Van Raffles, you'll
have to go it alone."

"Oh, don't you be afraid, Bunny," she answered. "I'm not going to use
your charms as a bait to lure this culinary Phyllis into the Arcadia in
which you with your Strephonlike form disport yourself."

"You oughtn't to do it at all," said I, gruffly. "It's worse than
murder, for it is prohibited twice in the decalogue, while murder is
only mentioned once."

"What!" cried Henrietta "What, pray, does the dec