The Motor Maid

								

heartily I wished she hadn't. A good thing Cerberus was on guard, or I
might have dropped a pillow accidentally on her head!
Just then I wasn't thanking Pamela for her generosity. The second-class
baby's mamma would have given it a bottle to keep it still; but there
was nothing I could give the fat old lady; and she had already resorted
to the bottle (something in the way of patent medicine) without any good
result. Yet, was there nothing I could give her?
"Oh, I'm dying, I know I'm dying, and nobody cares! I shall choke to
death!" she gurgled.
It was too much. I could stand it and the terrible atmosphere no longer.
I suppose, if I had been an early Christian martyr, waiting for my turn
to be devoured might have so got on my nerves eventually that I would
have thrown myself into the arena out of sheer spite at the lions, and
then tried my best to disagree with them.
Anyway, Bull Dog or no Bull Dog, having made a light, I slid down from
my berth--no thanks to the step-ladder--dangled a few wild seconds in
the air, and then offering--yes, offering my stockinged feet to the
Minotaur, I poked my head into the lower berth.
"What are you going to do?" gasped its occupant, la grosse femme whose
fault it would be if my hair did change from the gold of a louis to the
silver of a mere franc.
"You say you're stifling," I reminded her, politely but firmly, and my
tone was like the lull before a storm.
"Yes, but----" We were staring into each other's eyes, and--could I
believe my sense of touch, or was it mercifully blunted? It seemed that
the monster on the floor was gently licking my toes with a tongue like a
huge slice of pink ham, instead of chewing them to the bone. But there
are creatures which do that to their victims, I've heard, by way of
making it easier to swallow them, later.
"You also said no one cared," I went on, courageously. "I care--for
myself as well as for you. As for what I'm going to do--I'm going to do
several things. First, open the window, and then--then I'm going to
undress you."
"You must be mad!" gasped the lady, who was English. Oh, but more
English than any one else I ever saw in my life.
"Not yet," said I, as I darted at the thick blind she had drawn down
over the window, and let it fly up with a snap. I then opened the window
itself, a few inches, and in floated a perfumed breath of the soft April
air for which our bereaved lungs had been longing. The breeze fluttered
round my head like a benediction until I felt that the ebbing tide of
gold had turned, and was flowing into my back hair again.
"No wonder you're dying, madam," I exclaimed, switching the heat-lever
to "Froid." "So was I, but being merely an Upper Berth, with no rights,
I was suffering in silence. I watched you turn the heat full on, and
shut the window tight. I saw you go to bed in all your clothes, which
looked terribly thick, and cover yourself up with both your blankets;