The lady had a glorious two days ordering these girls round as head waiter and seeing that everybody got a good square look at her, and so on. But the other girls got tired the second day. It was jolly and all tips went to the Red Cross, and the tips was big; but it was just as hard work as if they had really been poor working girls, with not enough recreation about it. So the third day they rebelled at the head waiter and made Genevieve herself jump in and carry out trays full of dishes that had served their purpose.
This annoyed Genevieve May very much. It not only upset discipline but made the arms and back ache. So she now went into the kitchen to show the cook how to cook in a more saving manner. Her intentions were beautiful; but the head cook was a sensitive foreigner, and fifteen minutes after she went into his kitchen he had to be arrested for threatening to harm the well-known society matron with a common meat saw.
The new one they got in his place next day let her mess round all she wanted to, knowing his job depended on it, though it was told that he got a heartless devil-may-care look in his eyes the minute he saw her making a cheap fish sauce. But he said nothing.
That hotel does a big business, but it fell off surprising the day after this, twenty-three people having been took bad with poison from something they'd et there at lunch. True, none of these got as fur as the coroner, so it never was known exactly what they'd took in; but the thing made a lot of talk at stricken bedsides and Genevieve spent a dull day denying that her cooking had done this outrage. Then, her dignity being much hurt, she wrote a letter to the papers saying this hotel man was giving his guests cheap canned goods that had done the trick.
Next morning this brought the hotel man and one of the best lawyers in the state of Washington up to the palatial Popper residence, making threats after they got in that no lady taking up war activities should be obliged to listen to. She got rattled, I guess, or had been dreaming or something. She told the hotel man and lawyer to Ssh! Ssh!--because that new cook had put ground glass in the lemon pie and she had a right to lull his suspicions with this letter to the papers, because she was connected with the Secret Service Department. She would now go back to the hotel and detect this spy committing sabotage on the mashed potatoes, or something, and arrest him--just like that! I don't know whatever put the idea into her head. I believe she had tried to join the Secret Service Department till she found they didn't have uniforms.
