_Formal Invitation to Fifi to share Queed's Dining-Room (provided
it is very cold upstairs); and First Outrage upon the Sacred
Schedule of Hours._
Queed supped in an impenetrable silence. The swelling rednesses both
above and below his left eye attracted the curious attention of the
boarders, but he ignored their glances, and even Klinker forbore to
address him. The meal done, he ascended to his sacred chamber, but not
alas, to remain.
For a full week, the Scriptorium had been uninhabitable by night, the
hands of authors growing too numb there to write. On this night,
conditions were worse than ever; the usual valiant essay was defeated
with more than the usual case. Queed fared back to his dining-room, as
was now becoming his melancholy habit. And to-night the necessity was
exceptionally trying, for he found that the intrusive daughter of the
landlady had yet once again spread her mathematics there before him.
Nor could Fifi this time claim misunderstanding and accident. She fully
expected the coming of Mr. Queed, and had been nervously awaiting it.
The state of mind thus induced was not in the least favorable to doing
algebra successfully or pleasurably. No amount of bodily comfort could
compensate Fifi for having to have it. But her mother had ruled the
situation to-night with a strong hand and a flat foot. The bedroom was
_entirely too cold_ for Fifi. She must, positively _must_, go down to
the warm and comfortable dining-room,--do you hear me, Fifi? As for Mr.
Queed--well, if he made himself objectionable, Sharlee would simply have
to give him another good talking to.
Yet Fifi involuntarily cowered as she looked up and murmured: "Oh--good
evening!"
Mr. Queed bowed. In the way of conveying displeasure, he had in all
probability the most expressive face in America.
He passed around to his regular place, disposed his books and papers,
and placed his _Silence_ sign in a fairly conspicuous position. This
followed his usual custom. Yet his manner of making his arrangements
to-night wanted something of his ordinary aggressive confidence. In
fact, his promise to give an hour a day to exercise lay on his heart
like lead, and the lumps on his eye, large though they were, did not in
the least represent the dimensions of the fall he had received at the
hands of Mr. Pat.
Fifi was looking a little more fragile than when we saw her last, a
little more thin-cheeked, a shade more ethereal-eyed. Her cough was
quite bad to-night, and this increased her nervousness. How could she
_help_ from disturbing him with that dry tickling going on right along
in her throat? It had been a trying day, when everything seemed to go
wrong from the beginning. She had waked up feeling very listless and
tired; had been late for school; had been kept in for Cicero. In the
afternoon she had been going to a tea given to her class at the school,
but her mother said her cold was too bad for her to go, and besides she
really felt too tired. She hadn't eaten any supper, and had been quite
cross with her mother in their talk about the dining-room, which was the
worst thing that had happened at all. And now at nine o'clock she wanted
to go to bed, but her algebra would not, _would not_ come right, and
life was horrible, and she was unfit to live it anyway, and she wished
she was ...
"You are crying," stated a calm young voice across the table.
Brought up with a cool round turn, greatly mortified, Fifi thought that
the best way to meet the emergency was just to say nothing.
"What is the matter?" demanded the professorial tones.
"Oh, nothing," she said, winking back the tears and trying to smile,
apologetically--"just silly reasons. I--I've spent an hour and ten
minutes on a problem here, and it won't come right. I'm--sorry I
disturbed you."
There was a brief silence. Mr. Queed cleared his throat.
"You cannot solve your problem?"
"I haven't _yet_," she sniffed bravely, "but of course I will _soon_.
Oh, I understand it very well...."
She kept her eyes stoutly fixed upon her book, which indicated that not
for worlds would she interrupt him further. Nevertheless she felt his
large spectacles upon her. And presently he astonished her by saying,
resignedly--doubtless he had decided that thus could the virginal calm
be most surely and swiftly restored:--
"Bring me your book. I will solve your problem."
"Oh!" said Fifi, choking down a cough. And then, "Do you know all about
algebra, too?"
It seemed that Mr. Queed in his younger days had once made quite a
specialty of mathematics, both lower, like Fifi's, and also far higher.
The child's polite demurs were firmly overridden. Soon she was
established in a chair at his side, the book open on the table between
them.
"Indicate the problem," said Mr. Queed.
Fifi indicated it: No. 71 of the collection of stickers known as
Miscellaneous Review. It read as follows:
71. A laborer having built 105 rods of stone fence, found that if
he had built 2 rods less a day he would have been 6 days longer in
completing the job. How many rods a day did he build?