"Ask me! What on earth ails you, Mrs. Bowser? You are making fuss enough over ten minutes' work to warrant a year's job."
"Even if it takes me over half an hour, which it won't. I'll show you a job here that will make a black man turn green with envy. Just run upstairs and make yourself comfortable."
I retreated up the stairs to the kitchen door and waited for results, which I knew were sure to come. Mr. Bowser dipped and dished and sozzled and stirred until he had the liquid to his liking, and as he began on the stone wall I heard him chuckling:
"I said fifteen minutes, but I'll go slow and take twenty. The idea of a colored man sloshing around here all day to do this work. Let's see. I believe I'll take the overhead first."
I held my breath in suspense for a long minute. Then a yell arose from that cellar which jumped the cook out of her old slippers and made her cry out:
"For heaven's sake, Mrs. Bowser, have we been struck by another cyclone?"
There was a second and a third yell, and as I hurried downstairs Mr. Bowser stood in the middle of the cellar, hands out-stretched and jumping up and down as if he had fire under his feet.
"For heaven's sake, what is it, Mr. Bowser?" I asked.
"In my eyes! I'm blind! I've burned them out!"
I got hold of him and led him out to the laundry tubs and set the water to running. He had indeed got a dose in his eyes, but it was more painful than dangerous. He could hardly see daylight after we had washed out all the lime, and as I led him upstairs he said:
I washed his eyes with milk and got him to lie down on the lounge, and in a couple of hours he was pretty near all right. His eyes were sore, but no great damage had been done. He was very gentle until he discovered this. Then he suddenly turned on me with:
"Mrs. Bowser, what possible excuse can you urge in extenuation of your conduct?"
"What do I mean? That's a cool question to ask me! In view of what has transpired what have you to say?"
"I say that you were foolish to undertake the job. I warned you how it would turn out."
"Mrs. Bowser!" he shouted, squirting tears of lime water out of his eyes, "do you pretend to deny that you didn't encourage me to undertake a task which you knew would put my whole future happiness, if not my life, in peril?"