He was interrupted in his turn. “I don’t want any doctor. Doctors can’t do a thing for lumbago--except tell you you got chilled or something, and to keep still and rest up. When the pain goes it goes, and you can’t tell when. Maybe ’long about noon I can get downstairs. I don’t want any breakfast, and if you’ll go over to the----”
“I’m not going to the hotel, Mrs. Hodder--and you’re not going without your breakfast. I will----”
“I can cook enough to keep us from starving. Now, lie still and I’ll----”
A groan issued from the hidden bed. “I never knew a man that could. Listen here, Mr. Black. Now the coffee’s in the closet up above the kitchen table, the third door from the right. It’s in the same can it comes in, but it ain’t ground, and the grinder’s in the pantry, fastened to the wall. There may be some basins piled in front of it--I don’t remember--likely they is. The cream’s in the ice-chest--and _don’t_ skim the first pan you come to, because that’s night’s milk. You want to skim yesterday morning’s pan, and that’s pushed back farther. Now the bread-box----”
“The oatmeal’s in the double-boiler--all you have to do is to set it front of the stove, and make sure the water ain’t all boiled away. Lucky I always cook _that_ the night before. I suppose you don’t know how to light the gas in the broiler, so you can toast your bread. It’s the third knob to the left----”
Black got away at last, further instructions following him by the air line, in spite of his shouted assurance that he could find everything and do everything, and that his housekeeper should rest comfortably and stop worrying. It must be confessed, however, that he was worrying a bit himself, for his first thought that he would make a breakfast of oatmeal--since that was already cooked--and let it go at that, was instantly followed by the recollection that Mrs. Hodder didn’t eat oatmeal herself, but relied principally upon the toast and coffee and boiled egg he himself was accustomed to take with her. Unquestionably she must have these, and it was up to him to prepare them.
He removed his coat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and went at it. He lighted the gas and moved the double-boiler forward, thus assuring himself of one staple article upon the breakfast schedule. He then began a search for the coffee, congratulating himself upon remembering that the filtered beverage with which he was accustomed to be served took time to make. Thus began the tragic hour which followed....