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“Bless my soul!” said the red-haired man. “Then what is it?” Jane flushed, but he went on tactlessly: “I give you my word, I think you are the most perfectly”–he gave every appearance of being about to say “beautiful,” but he evidently changed his mind–“the most perfectly healthy person I have ever looked at,” he finished.

It is difficult to say just what Jane would have done under other circumstances, but just as she was getting her temper really in hand and preparing to launch something, shuffling footsteps were heard in the hall and Higgins stood in the doorway.

He was in a sad state. One of his eyes was entirely closed, and the corresponding ear stood out large and bulbous from his head. Also he was coated with mud, and he was carefully nursing one hand with the other.

He said he had been met at the near end of the railroad bridge by the ex-furnace man and one of the ex-orderlies and sent back firmly, having in fact been kicked back part of the way. He’d been told to report at the hospital that the tradespeople had instituted a boycott, and that either the former superintendent went back or the entire place could starve to death.

It was then that Jane discovered that her much-vaunted temper was not one-two-three to that of the red-haired person. He turned a sort of blue-white, shoved Jane out of his way as if she had been a chair, and she heard him clatter down the stairs and slam out of the front door.

Jane went back to her room and looked down the drive. He was running toward the bridge, and the sunlight on his red hair and his flying legs made him look like a revengeful meteor. Jane was weak in the knees. She knelt on the cold radiator and watched him out of sight, and then got trembly all over and fell to snivelling. This was of course because, if anything happened to him, she would be left entirely alone. And anyhow the D.T. case was singing again and had rather got on her nerves.

In ten minutes the red-haired person appeared. He had a wretched-looking creature by the back of the neck and he alternately pushed and kicked him up the drive. He–the red-haired person–was whistling and clearly immensely pleased with himself.

Jane put a little powder on her nose and waited for him to come and tell her all about it. But he did not come near. This was quite the cleverest thing he could have done, had he known it. Jane was not accustomed to waiting in vain. He must have gone directly to the cellar, half pushing and half kicking the luckless furnace man, for about four o’clock the radiator began to get warm.

At five he came and knocked at Jane’s door, and on being invited in he sat down on the bed and looked at her.

“Well, we’ve got the furnace going,” he said.

“Then that was the—-“

“Furnace man? Yes.”

“Aren’t you afraid to leave him?” queried Jane. “Won’t he run off?”

“Got him locked in a padded cell,” he said. “I can take him out to coal up. The rest of the time he can sit and think of his sins. The question is–what are we to do next?”

“I should think,” ventured Jane, “that we’d better be thinking about supper.”

“The beef capsules are gone.”

“But surely there must be something else about–potatoes or things like that?”

He brightened perceptibly. “Oh, yes, carloads of potatoes, and there’s canned stuff. Higgins can pare potatoes, and there’s Mary O’Shaughnessy. We could have potatoes and canned tomatoes and eggs.”

“Fine!” said Jane with her eyes gleaming, although the day before she would have said they were her three abominations.

And with that he called Higgins and Mary O’Shaughnessy and the four of them went to the kitchen.

Jane positively shone. She had never realised before how much she knew about cooking. They built a fire and got kettles boiling and everybody pared potatoes, and although in excess of zeal the eggs were ready long before everything else and the tomatoes scorched slightly, still they made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in ability, and when Higgins had carried the trays to the lift and started them on their way, Jane and the red-haired person shook hands on it and then ate a boiled potato from the same plate, sitting side by side on a table.