"Poor mama!" she said. "Of
course he knows it wouldn't do anything of the kind, or else he'd
have done it long ago."
"He would, you say?" her mother cried. "That only shows how
little you know him!"
"Poor mama!" Alice said again, soothingly. "If papa were like
what you say he is, he'd be--why, he'd be crazy!"
Mrs. Adams agreed with a vehemence near passion. "You're right
about him for once: that's just what he is! He sits up there in
his stubbornness and lets us slave here in the kitchen when if he
wanted to--if he'd so much as lift his little finger----"
"Oh, come, now!" Alice laughed. "You can't build even a glue
factory with just one little finger."
Mrs. Adams seemed about to reply that finding fault with a
figure of speech was beside the point; but a ringing of the front
door bell forestalled the retort. "Now, who do you suppose that
is?" she wondered aloud, then her face brightened. "Ah--did Mr.
Russell ask if he could----"
"No, he wouldn't be coming this evening," Alice said. "Probably
it's the great J. A. Lamb: he usually stops for a minute on
Thursdays to ask how papa's getting along. I'll go."
She tossed her apron off, and as she went through the house her
expression was thoughtful. She was thinking vaguely about the
glue factory and wondering if there might be "something in it"
after all.
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