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she liked to call it—and Hemming had pledged himself to write something that would bring her the saucy little ornament she craved in time for Christmas. She was a slender, bright-faced creature, and no one could wear an innocently tilted turban with more grace. But these had been hard days for small incomes. Winter coal, and warm clothes for the Urchin, and the cook's wages (when they had one), and Liberty Bonds—all these had taken precedence over the pert little hat. It had been talked of so long, it had become a kind of joyous legend, which Janet hardly expected to see realized on her head. She used to say wistfully, as she coasted off to sleep on the couch: "Would it be unpatriotic to think about the pert little hat?" And her husband would vow that patriotism that excluded pert little hats was no patriotism at all. So he had sworn that the bonnet should be millinered on the clacking loom of his typewriter. They used to laugh about it, and say that the little hat ought to be trimmed with carbon typewriter ribbons.

But Hemming did not know that Janet was not always asleep after the so-called "pathetic moment" when she ostensibly gave up the struggle with drowsiness. The twanging springs of the old couch made less noise than the typewriter keys,