It's Eliza and Rosa, and all the rest of those women who can get a meal on to the table all at once, so it's fit to eat!" "Why, Billy!" gasped Bertram again, falling back to the door he had closed behind him.

"What in the world does this mean ?" "Mean?
It means I'm getting dinner," choked Billy.

"Can't you see ?" "But--Pete! Eliza!" "They're sick--I mean he's sick; and I said I'd do it.

I'd be an oak.
But how did I know there wasn't anything in the house except stuff that took hours to cook--only potatoes?
And how did I know that _they_ cooked in no time, and then got all smushy and wet staying in the water?
And how did I know that everything else would stick on and burn on till you'd used every dish there was in the house to cook 'em in ?" "Why, Billy!" gasped Bertram, for the third time.

And then, because he had been married only six months instead of six years, he made the mistake of trying to argue with a woman whose nerves were already at the snapping point.