of a minute or two. She seemed glad
to find me so much improved in health and well on the road to recovery.
I tried to thank her for her care of me, for her sending for Hephzy and
all the rest of it, but she would not listen. She chatted about Paris
and the French people, about Monsieur Louis, the concierge, and joked
with Hephzy about that gentleman's admiration for "the wonderful
American lady," meaning Hephzy herself.

"He calls you 'Madame Cay-hoo-on,'" she said, "and he thinks you a
miracle of decision and management. I think he is almost afraid of you,
I really do."

Hephzy smiled, grimly. "He'd better be," she declared. "The way
everybody was flyin' around when I first got here after comin' from
Interlaken, and the way the help jabbered and hunched up their shoulders
when I asked questions made me so fidgety I couldn't keep still. I
wanted an egg for breakfast, that first mornin' and when the waiter
brought it, it was in the shell, the way they eat eggs over here. I
can't eat 'em that way--I'm no weasel--and I told the waiter I wanted an
egg cup. Nigh as I could make out from his pigeon English he was
tellin' me there was a cup there. Well, there was, one of those little,
two-for-a-cent contraptions, just big enough to stick one end of the
egg into. 'I want a big one,' says I. 'We, Madame,' says he, and off
he trotted. When he came back he brought me a big EGG, a duck's egg, I
guess 'twas. Then I scolded and he jabbered some more and by and by he
went and fetched this Monsieur Louis man. He could speak English, thank
goodness, and he was real nice, in his French way. He begged my pardon
for the waiter's stupidness, said he was a new hand, and the like of
that, and went on apologizin' and bowin' and smilin' till I almost had a
fit.

"'For mercy sakes!' I says, 'don't say any more about it. If that last
egg hadn't been boiled 'twould have hatched out an--an ostrich, or
somethin' or other, by this time. And it's stone cold, of course.
Have this--this jumpin'-jack of yours bring me a hot egg--a hen's
egg--opened, in a cup big enough to see without spectacles, and tell
him to bring some cream with the coffee. At any rate, if there isn't
any cream, have him bring some real milk instead of this watery stuff.
I might wash clothes with that, for I declare I think there's bluin'
in it, but I sha'n't drink it; I'd be afraid of swallowin' a fish by
accident. And do hurry!'

"He went away then, hurryin' accordin' to ord