"Start a fire, Jim, and get a bed of cannel going with a roar. You'll
find the stuff in that willow basket. Open all the windows, Ches. Then
all make yourselves comfortable and await my operations. I promise you
a treat--from my point of view."

And he rushed away.

"It's my private opinion," growled Macauley, beginning sulkily to lay
the fire, "that that fellow is off his head. He always did seem a trifle
cracked, and to-night he's certainly dippy. What's he going to do with a
fire, at 11 P.M., on a May evening, I'd like to know?"

"Whatever it is, it will be refreshing." Winifred Chester, reckless of
her delicate blue evening gown, curled herself up in a corner of the big
davenport and laid her head luxuriously down among the pillows. "Oh, I'm
so tired," she sighed. "Seems to me I never heard so many stupid things
said, in one evening, in my life."

Arthur Chester, having thrown every window wide--though he discreetly
drew the curtains over those which faced the street--sat down in a great
winged chair of comfortable cushioning, and stretched his legs in front
of him as far as they would go, his arms clasped behind his head. He also
drew a deep sigh of content.

"I don't recall," said he, wearily, "that I have sat down once during the
entire evening."

"How ridiculous!" cried Martha Macauley, bristling. "If you didn't, it
was your own fault. I took away hardly any chairs, and I arranged several
splendid corners just on purpose for those who wished to sit."

"As there were a couple of hundred people, and not over a couple of dozen
chairs--" began Chester, dryly.

But Martha interrupted him. "I never saw such a set. Just as if you
hadn't been going to affairs like this one all your lives,--and Ellen,
especially, must have been at hundreds of them in Washington,--and now
you're all disgusted with having to bear up under just one little
informal--"

"Cheer up, my children," called Burns, reentering. He was garbed in
white, which his guests saw after a moment to be a freshly laundered
surgical gown, covering him from head to foot, the sleeves reaching only
to his elbows, beneath which his bare arms gleamed sturdily. He bore a
wire broiler in one hand, and a platter of something in the other, and
his face wore an expression of content.

"Beefsteak, by all that's crazy!" shouted James Macauley, eying the
generous expanse of raw meat upon the platter with undisguised delight.
He forgot his sulkiness in an instant