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He led the way past the mess-house, from the doorway of which the aproned cook eyed her with frank curiosity, hailing his employer with nonchalant air, a cigarette resting in one corner of his mouth. Benton opened the door of the second building. Stella followed him in. It had the saving grace of cleanliness according to logging-camp standards. But the bareness of it appalled her.
It was a very large apartment, one that looked as if it might have been built for a ball-room; at least, there was a wide, cushioned bench running around three sides of it, close to the wall. On one side, behind some black and gold Japanese screens, where they could hear and not be seen, sat a row of silent, capped and aproned nurse-maids and bonneted mammas. Mrs.
An aproned waiter served them, Cobb with beer, Savinien with a treacly liqueur in a glass the size of a thimble. When he was a little restored from his exertions, he laid his arm on the table, with the little glass held between his thumb and forefinger, and remained in this attitude. "Go ahead," said Cobb. "Tell me why you are distributing watches to the deserving poor in this manner."
As I broke the seal, pulled out the cork and unwrapped the cigar from its gold foil he took a stick and rapped loudly on the floor. After a brief interval footsteps were heard on the stairs and Mike Monahan, white aproned and scarlet faced, appeared at the door. "Bobtails," said Mr. Jason, laconically. "It's them I thought ye'd be wanting," said the saloon-keeper, holding out a handful.
There stood Hannah, white capped and white aproned, holding the silver serving tray like a petrified statue of severity, and not one of them spoke, but their silence, their dignified, reproachful silence was infinitely worse than a torrent of invective. How Annie wished they would speak.
An ample black woman, aproned and turbaned, looked at me through the steam of many kettles, turned and cuffed the lad at the spit, dealt a few buffets among the scullions, and waddled up to me, bobbing and curtsying. "Aunt Tulip," I said, gravely, "are you voodoo?" "Folks says ah is, Mars' Ormon'," she said, in her soft Georgia accent. "Oh, they do, do they? Look at me, Aunt Tulip.
Holmes had sent on a wire, so that Lestrade, as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-like as ever, was waiting for us at the station. A walk of five minutes took us to Cross Street, where Miss Cushing resided. It was a very long street of two-story brick houses, neat and prim, with whitened stone steps and little groups of aproned women gossiping at the doors.
Now and then a garden gate opened and a man in evening dress, and a woman, a vague, dainty mass of satin and frills and fur, emerged, stood for a moment in the shaft of light cast by the open hall-door beyond, which framed the white-capped and aproned parlour-maid, and entering a waiting hansom, drove off into the darkness whither my speculative fancy followed them.
But when they had reached the flat, and snapped on lights everywhere, and cast off outer garments, aproned and busy, in the kitchen, she burst out: "What on earth was the matter with that old lady, Aunt Kate?" "Oh, I suppose they all eat too much, and sleep too much, and pamper themselves as if they were babies," her aunt returned, composedly, "and so it doesn't take much to upset 'em!"
The sound of the once familiar whistle brought the men tumbling from Burrage's door, while up and down the deserted street aproned forms stood framed in the doorways, beflanked by tousled heads which gazed wonder-eyed from behind tight-gripped skirts.
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