At first she had not noticed the let
ter. The room was cold, so she had
turned on the little gas fire, donned a
fur-bordered dressing Jacket and a
rose-hued boudoir cap (Richenda loved
color) and slipped back to her warm
bed, preparatory to tackling the bacon
and tomatoes which formed her fa
vorite breakfast. She would have liked
mushrooms and kidneys as well, but,
as she philosophically decided, one
must subdue mushroom and kidney
Inclinations when one bas only a
boiled-egg income!
And now the hot tomatoes were be
coming duller in hue, the bacon a
little cold and gray, and Richenda,
her lacy cap suddenly shot to the
back of her head as she ran puzzled
Angers through her disordered thatch
of rioting short hair, was sitting bolt
upright, away from the comfortably
arranged bank of pillows at her back,
mouth agape, eyes wide in amaze
ment —gasping.
Os course it couldn’t be! There was
some mistake. She hadn’t even both
ered to consider those silly industries
properly. She had just put the 15
names on paper and dabbed a pin at
them, chanting childlishly: “Ena,
deena, dinah doh, catch a nigger by
his toe * • ♦” until she had one by
one reduced them to the numbered
order decided by the old rhyme.
