The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives Part 25

"And he's a regular stupid old know-nothing, isn't he, baby?"

And she made the baby give the poker such a thrust of sympathy that it stuck fast in the fire.

"Whew!" she exclaimed, jerking it out. "How hot that fire is! I'm fairly cooked!"

There was a peculiar expression on Steve's face, and all at once Nannie remembered a newspaper clipping that had dropped from one of his note-books that day when she cleared his desk. A sudden thought struck her and caused her to pause with the poker in mid air.

"Have you been cooking me, sir?" she asked in awful tones, taking her seat as a judge might take his bench.

Steve's color started and a strange smile dawned upon his face. His very looks convicted him.

Now it was Nannie who was flus.h.i.+ng, and so prettily, pursing up her bewitching mouth in the old way.

"Am I done?" she asked presently in a lower tone.

"To a turn!" he replied.

"Then I think I'll get off the spit, by your leave, sir," she said with saucy bravado.

And she arose to move back from the fire.

"Steve!" she cried, "you are _devouring_ me!"

THE END.