He Does Not Deny It

"Wash the table linen!" he was grumbling. "I'll do what I can that's
necessary. Grub has to be cooked, and dishes has to be washed--I'll
admit that. If you're particular, make up your bed every day; I don't
object. But don't tell me we have to use thirty-three table napkins
a day. What did folks do before napkins was invented? Tell me
that!"--triumphantly.

"What's the answer?" Mr. Harbison inquired absently, evidently with the
screw driver in his mouth.

"Used their pocket handkerchiefs! And if the worst comes to the
worst, Mr. Harbison, these folks here can use their sleeves, for all
I care--not that the women has any sleeves to speak of. Wash clothes I
will not."

"Well, don't worry Mrs. Wilson about it," the other voice said.
Flannigan straightened himself with a grunt.

"Mrs. Wilson!" he said. "A lot she would worry. She's been a
disappointment to me, Mr. Harbison, me thinking that now she'd come back
to him, after leavin' him the way she did, they'd be like two turtle
doves. Lord! The cook next door--"

But what the cook had told about Bella and Jimmy was not divulged,
for the Harbison man caught him up with a jerk and sent Flannigan,
grumbling, with his rugs to the roof.

It did not seem possible to carry on the deception much longer, but if
things were bad now, what would they be when Aunt Selina learned she had
been lied to, made ridiculous, generally deceived? And how would I be
able to live in the house with her when she did know? Luckily, every
one was so puzzled over the mystery in the house that numbers of little
things that would have been absolutely damning were never noticed at
all. For instance, my asking Jimmy at luncheon that day if he took cream
in his coffee! And Max coming to the rescue by dropping his watch in
his glass of water, and creating a diversion and giving everybody an
opportunity to laugh by saying not to mind, it had been in soak before.