Seeing that he was about to launch into a homily on efficiency, such as she had heard him deliver at least twenty times in the three months she had been married to him, she said:
"If you're going to get breakfast, hadn't you better hurry and take your bath?"
"That's so," he admitted. Shuffling briskly to the bathroom, he was soon foaming at the mouth with tooth-paste.
There was a loud buzzing sound from the direction of the kitchen.
"Henry!" called Mrs. Brush, "there goes the dumb-waiter. Shall I answer it?"
"No; I'll ho," he replied pastily out of the corner of his mouth. Still busily agitating his tooth-brush, so as not to waste any time, he paddled to the dumb-waiter and called: "He'o! Whash you wa'?"
"Garbage!" replied a gruff voice. A rattling of ropes announced that the car was on its way.
Mr. Brush opened the "sanitary garbage closet," and, screwing up his face and tooth-brush, seized something that was mighty unlike a rose. He held the pail out at arm's-length as he carried it to the dumb-waiter.
"Huh?" gurgled Mr. Brush, nervously swallowing a generous amount of tooth-paste.
Mr. Brush looked helplessly at the can on the dumb-waiter and then at his incapacitated hands.
Mr. Brush sputtered; then, extracting the tooth-brush with the fourth and fifth knuckles of his left hand, he shouted back indignantly:
"Then why didn't you _say_ so?" And down went the dumb-waiter with a jerk.
Mr. Brush returned to the bathroom. As he was in the midst of shaving, the buzzer sounded again. This time he was on the alert and ready for any argument. Leaving his razor, but not his lather, he hurried back to the kitchen in a combative mood.
"What do you want?" he yelled defiantly as he opened the door of the dumb-waiter. There was no answer; but facing him on the shelf of the car stood his empty pail, silent, stolid, indifferent to his bravado. He snatched it off and returned to his ablutions.
On account of the extreme lateness of the hour, he decided to finish off with a quick shower-bath, first hot and then cold. Just as he removed his last garment, the buzzer sounded again.
"Aw, go ahead and buzz!" he said between his teeth.
As he stepped into the hot downpour, the door-bell rang.
But apparently the person in question had no desire to do so, for the bell sounded again and again. To complete the symphony, the telephone chimed in with its merry tune.