“I should think,” ventured Jane, “that we’d better be thinking about supper.”

“The beef capsules are gone.”

“But surely there must be something else about—­potatoes or things like that?”

He brightened perceptibly.  “Oh, yes, carloads of potatoes, and there’s canned stuff.  Higgins can pare potatoes, and there’s Mary O’Shaughnessy.  We could have potatoes and canned tomatoes and eggs.”

“Fine!” said Jane with her eyes gleaming, although the day before she would have said they were her three abominations.

And with that he called Higgins and Mary O’Shaughnessy and the four of them went to the kitchen.

Jane positively shone.  She had never realised before how much she knew about cooking.  They built a fire and got kettles boiling and everybody pared potatoes, and although in excess of zeal the eggs were ready long before everything else and the tomatoes scorched slightly, still they made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in ability, and when Higgins had carried the trays to the lift and started them on their way, Jane and the red-haired person shook hands on it and then ate a boiled potato from the same plate, sitting side by side on a table.

They were ravenous.  They boiled one egg each and ate it, and then boiled another and another, and when they finished they found that Jane had eaten four potatoes, four eggs and unlimited bread and butter, while the red-haired person had eaten six saucers of stewed tomatoes and was starting on the seventh.

“You know,” he said over the seventh, “we’ve got to figure this thing out.  The entire town is solid against us—­no use trying to get to a telephone.  And anyhow they’ve got us surrounded.  We’re in a state of siege.”

Jane was beating up an egg in milk for the D.T. patient, the capsules being exhausted, and the red-haired person was watching her closely.  She had the two vertical lines between her eyes, but they looked really like lines of endeavour and not temper.

She stopped beating and looked up.

“Couldn’t I go to the village?” she asked.

“They would stop you.”

“Then—­I think I know what we can do,” she said, giving the eggnog a final whisk.  “My people have a summer place on the hill.  If you could get there you could telephone to the city.”

“Could I get in?”

“I have a key.”

Jane did not explain that the said key had been left by her father, with the terse hope that if she came to her senses she could get into the house and get her clothes.

“Good girl,” said the red-headed person and patted her on the shoulder.  “We’ll euchre the old skate yet.”  Curiously, Jane did not resent either the speech or the pat.

He took the glass and tied on a white apron.  “If our friend doesn’t drink this, I will,” he continued.  “If he’d seen it in the making, as I have, he’d be crazy about it.”

He opened the door and stood listening.  From below floated up the refrain: