I see fit. I dare you."

An instant Roberts stood as he was; slowly and without a word he started
for his room. As he did so Armstrong arose swiftly and, all but
gropingly, his hand sought the red decanter on the mantel. "I dare you,"
he repeated blindly, "dare you!"

"Armstrong!" Roberts had halted, looking back. "Not for any one's sake
but your own--think a second, man."

"To hell with you and thought!"

Without a sound this time or another glance the door to Roberts' room
opened and closed and Armstrong was alone.

CHAPTER VI

A WARNING

With a dexterity born of experience Harry Randall looked up from his
labor of separating the zone of carbon from the smaller segment of chop
that had escaped the ravages of a superheated frying-pan and smiled
across the table at his wife.

"On the contrary," he said, refuting a pessimistic observation previously
made by the person addressed, "I think you're doing fine. I can see a
distinct improvement every month. On the whole you're really becoming an
admirable cook."

"Undoubtedly!" The voice dripped with irony. "That very chop, for
instance--"

"Is merely a case in point," amiably. "Some people, unscientific people,
might contend that it was overdone; but the initiated--that's us--know
better. Meat, particularly from the genus hog, should always be well
cooked. It obviates the possibility of trichina infection absolutely."

"And those biscuits," equivocally. "I'll wager they'd sink like steel
billets."

Her husband inspected the articles designated with a judicial eye.

"Better so. We're thus saved the temptation of eating them. All
statistics prove that hot biscuits and dyspepsia--"

"The salad, then," wearily.

"Hygienic beyond a doubt. The superabundance of seasoning to which you
doubtless refer may be unusual; nevertheless, it's a leaning in the right
direction. Condiments of all kinds tend to stimulate the flow of the
gastric juice; and that, you know, from your physiology, is what does the
digestive business."

Margery Randall laughed, against her will.

"And last of all the coffee," she suggested.

"Frankly, as coffee, it is a little peculiar; but considered as hot water
merely, it leaves nothing to be desired; and science teaches again that,
like condiments, hot water--"

The two laughed together; temporarily the atmosphere cleared.

"Seriously, Harry," asked the girl, "do you really think I'll ever get so
I can cook things that aren't an