"The--the wash-bowl!" she insinuated at last, determined not to be daunted.

"Don't you think it rather large? to say nothing of its being too suggestive?" said Nattie, laughing.

Cyn did not press the point, but shook her head, dubiously.

"I have it!" cried Nattie, "there is a fruit-dish in my room."

"Just the thing!" interrupted Cyn ecstatically, "I will run and bring it, if you will attend to the cooking."

"Look out for Miss Kling," said Nattie, warningly; "if she catches a glimpse of you making off with my fruit-dish, she will never rest until she finds out everything."

"Rely on me for secrecy and dispatch," said Cyn, going. "If she sees me, I will mention nuts and raisins; merely mention them, you know."

But Miss Kling, for once, was napping; perhaps dreaming of him Cyn called the Torpedo--Celeste's father--and she obtained the dish, reached her own door again without being seen by any one except the d.u.c.h.ess, and was congratulating herself on her good luck, when suddenly, like an apparition, Quimby stood before her.

Cyn started, murmured something about "oranges," slipped the soap-dish she had also confiscated into her pocket, and tried to make the big fruit-dish appear as small as possible.

She might, however, have spared herself any uneasiness, for this always the most un.o.bservant of mortals, was too much overburdened with some affair of his own, to notice even a two-quart dish.

"Oh! I--I beg pardon, I--I was coming with a a--request to your room,"

he said eagerly. "I--would it be too much to--to bring a friend, he knows no one here, and I am sure he and you would fraternize at once, if I might bring him, you know."

"Certainly--yes!" replied Cyn, too anxious to get away to pay much attention to his words, particularly as an odor of steak reached her nostrils.

"Thank you! I--I never knew any one who understood me as well as you!"

he said with a grateful bow, and without more words, Cyn left him.

"How long you have been gone!" Nattie remarked, looking up, her cheeks very red, and her nose embellished with a streak of s.m.u.t, as Cyn entered. "Did you see any one?"

"No one except Quimby, who stopped me to ask about bringing a friend to call some evening," Cyn replied, displaying the fruit, and producing the soap-dish.

"Mercy on us!" Nattie said, looking rather aghast, "it is rather large, isn't it? and what did you bring-that soap-dish for?"

"I thought it might come handy," laughed Cyn. "We will make a potato holder of it for the time. 'To what base uses may we come at last?'--Why--" in a tone of surprise, "here is the d.u.c.h.ess!"

And sure enough, up by the window sat that sagacious animal, winking and blinking complacently, and evidently determined to be a third in the feast.

"She came in unnoticed under the shadow that fruit-dish threw," said Nattie, teasingly.

Cyn shook an oyster fork at her threateningly.

"Say another such word and you shall have no steak!" she said tragically, "instead, a dungeon shall be your doom. We will let the d.u.c.h.ess remain as a receiver of odds and ends. I suppose her suspicions were excited by the sight of these articles. A rare cat! a learned cat!

now please set the table, for our feast will soon be prepared!" and Cyn bent over the sizzling steak, that emitted a most appetizing odor.

Setting that table was no such easy matter as might appear, for what with the big fruit-dish, wooden covers, different sizes of plates and other incongruous articles, considerable management was necessary.

"I shall have to put the sugar on in the bag," Nattie said, incautiously backing to view the general effect, and so stumbling over the saucepan of potatoes that sat on the floor, but luckily doing no damage.

"Ah, well! Eccentricity is quite the rage now, you know," responded the philosophical Cyn, "and certainly, a sugar-bowl so closely resembling a brown paper bag as not to be distinguishable from the real thing, is quite _recherche_. But my dear Nat, where am I to set the steak if you have that big fruit-dish in the center of the table, taking up all the room?"

"I shall have to put it on the floor, then," Nattie answered, despairingly, "for I have tried it on all parts of the table! If you set it on the edge," she added hastily, seeing Cyn about to do so, "you will tip the whole thing over!"

"Then we must have a side-board," Cyn announced, with a plate of steak in one hand, and the big fruit-dish in the other. "Put my writing-desk on a chair, please; spread a towel over it, and there you have it!"

"But what a quant.i.ty of eatables we have! Two pounds of steak, ten big potatoes, a two-quart dish of tomatoes, two large pies, two Charlotte Russes, an urn of coffee, a dozen oranges and a box of figs--good gracious! Think of two people eating all that!" exclaimed Nattie, decidedly dismayed at the prospect.

"It is considerable," Cyn confessed, surveying the array with a slightly daunted expression. "You see I am not used to buying for a family, and I was afraid of getting too little. But," brightening, "there isn't more than one quart of the tomatoes, and there are _three_ of us, you know--the d.u.c.h.ess!"

"To be sure; I had forgotten her!" Nattie said, recovering her equanimity, and glancing at the purring animal, who was looking on approvingly, and evidently appreciated the difference between sirloin and her usual rations of round.

"Then let the revels commence, at once!" cried Cyn, rolling down her sleeves, while Nattie wiped the s.m.u.t from her face.

But now another difficulty presented itself; the chairs were all too low to admit of feasting with the antic.i.p.ated rapture; this was soon overcome, however, by piling a few books in the highest chair, and appropriating the music-stool.

"Now for a feast," exclaimed Nattie, exultantly, as they sat down triumphant, and she brandished her very big knife and extremely small fork, while Cyn poured the coffee from the--urn; an undertaking attended with some difficulty, and requiring caution; and the d.u.c.h.ess looked on expectantly.

And then--the goal almost reached--upon their startled ears came a dreadful sound--the sound of a knock at the door!

Down to the ground went Nattie's knife and fork, the coffee-urn narrowly escaped a similar fate, up went the back of the d.u.c.h.ess, and two dismayed Bohemians and one impatient cat gazed at each other.

CHAPTER IX.

UNEXPECTED VISITORS.

"It must be Miss Kling, overpowered by curiosity!" murmured Nattie.

"No!" answered Cyn in a stage whisper, "the knock is too timid. Good gracious! there it is again! Stand in front of the gas stove, Nat, lest it be Mrs. Simonson, while I go and invent some excuse for not letting in whoever it is."

And having given these hasty directions, Cyn opened the door the smallest possible crack. As she did so, and before she could speak, it was pushed back violently, almost knocking her over, and in burst Quimby. This, however, might not have much disconcerted them, as _he_ could have been disposed of easily enough, had not at his heels came a tall, fine-looking young man, a perfect stranger to both Cyn and Nattie.

"You see I keep my word!" was the enigmatical remark the smiling Quimby made as he entered. Then, catching sight of the festive board, he stopped short and stared, with an utterly confounded face, at that, at the embarra.s.sed Nattie, at Cyn, behind the door, and at the saucepan cover, which, embellished with potato parings, occupied a prominent position in the middle of the floor.

His companion also paused, a surprised and amused smile lurking in his merry brown eyes as he looked at Nattie, seemingly regardless of anything else in the room.

Cyn was the first to recover from the general petrifaction, and with the involuntary thought, "what an excellent stage situation!" came from behind the door, where Quimby's impetuous entrance had thrust her, saying, with as much ease as she could possibly gather together,

"Don't be frightened at what you see, friend Quimby; we were only extemporizing a little feast, that is all. Will you join us?"

But Quimby only stared harder than ever; he was evidently struck speechless.

His companion, thus placed in the awkward position of an unintroduced intruder, withdrew his eyes from Nattie, took in the situation at a glance, and turning to Cyn, said, smiling,

"I think we owe you an apology for our intrusion; my friend Quimby, on whom I called to day, in pity for my being a stranger in the city, kindly offered to introduce me to some friends of his. He informed me we were expected, but I fear we have made a mistake."