It will all have to be done over again if I let Albert go for a moment, so, gripping him hard, I shout indignantly that I have not seen the carrot-grater.
"Then what did you grate the carrots on?" asks the voice, and the door-handle is shaken just as I shake Albert.
"On a broken cup," I reply with surprising readiness, and I get to work again, but am less engrossed, for a conviction grows on me that I put the carrot-grater in the drawer of the sewing-machine.
I am wondering whether I should confess or brazen it out, when I hear my sister going hurriedly upstairs. I have a presentiment that she has gone to talk about me, and I basely open my door and listen.
"Just look at that, mother!"
"Is it a dish-cloth?"
"That's what it is now."
"Losh behears! it's one of the new table-napkins."
"That's what it was. He has been polishing the kitchen grate with it!"
(I remember!)
"Woe's me! That is what comes of his not letting me budge from this room. O, it is a watery Sabbath when men take to doing women's work!"
"It defies the face of clay, mother, to fathom what makes him so senseless."
