Page:Arthur Stringer - Twin Tales.djvu/20

10 learn, when the crocuses bloomed again, that elephant-feeders weren't persons one could always depend upon.

About this time the era of indigestion and temperament came along, the era when Teddie began to betray an abnormal interest in what might repose on the buffet, and queen-olives fought with chocolate éclairs, and pickled walnuts combined with biscuit Tortoni to dispute the ventral supremacy of broiled mushrooms. It was the era when capon-wings and melon mangoes were apt to be found wrapped up in embroidered towels with insets of Venetian lace, and tucked in under the edges of the oppressively big colonial mahogany bed with the pineapple posts, and bonbon-boxes obtruded from the corners of a much becushioned bergère, and salted almonds mysteriously transferred themselves from below-stairs to the lacquered jewel-box in a lilac-tinted boudoir. This occurred about the time that her mother so zealously took up the study of genealogy and had an entirely new crest made for the family stationery and even neglected her club work