"I'm plain vulgarian," he laughed to his wife one morning as he started to work. "I would rather drive one of my father's trucks and come home to your pork-chops, than I would to dawdle around his house and dine with a strong man standing behind my chair to save me the fatigue of putting sugar in my own coffee. Are you going to have some of those jolly little apple-fritters with butter and cinnamon on them for supper to-night?"
She made a tantalizing face at him. It was two days before Christmas, and so cold that her lips and cheeks were stung poppy-bright as she stood in the doorway.
"Of course not; now I know that you want them. We will have cold meat. What are you going to give me for my stocking, Anthony?"
"A cold-meat fork," he countered promptly. "How did you know I meant to give you anything?"
"I didn't," she calmly told him. "But I am going to give you something, so I thought it only kind to remind you."
He swung himself easily over the railing and smothered her in an embrace made bear-like by his shaggy coat.
"The chauffeur's peerless bride shall not weep," he soothed her. "For ten days her ruby stomacher has been ordered by her devoted husband. Now let your Romeo depart, or his pay will get docked next Saturday."
She lingered in his arms an instant, her shining dark hair pressed against the rough darkness of his cheap fur coat.
"Anthony, don't they ever notice your name, down there? Didn't they ever ask about it?"
"Surely! The first day I went in, the superintendent asked if I were related to Mr. Adriance. I told him yes, a poor relation. True, isn't it? He was satisfied, anyhow. They call me Andy, down there."
"Andy!" she essayed experimentally. "Andy! It goes pretty well."
They laughed together, then he gently pushed her toward the door.
"Go in," he bade, with his commanding manner; the manner Elsie had taught him. "You will take a royal cold out here, and then what should I do for my meals? I have to eat if I am to labor; besides, I like my food. What did you call those cakes we had this morning?"
"'_Belle cala, tout chaud!_'" she intoned the soft street-cry of old New Orleans' breakfast hours, her voice catching the quaint, enticing inflections of those dark-skinned vendors who once loitered their sunny rounds freighted with fragrant baskets. "Some day I will show you what I call a city, sir; if you'll take me?"