"I hear they do have dreadful times with help in New York," said Mrs.
Bines.

"Don't let that bother you, ma," her son reassured her. "We'll go to
the Hightower Hotel, first. You remember you and pa were there when it
first opened. It's twice as large now, and we'll take a suite, have our
meals served privately, our own servants provided by the hotel, and you
won't have a thing to worry you. We'll be snug there for the winter.
Then for the summer we'll go to Newport, and when we come back from
there we'll take a house. Meantime, after we've looked around a bit,
we'll build, maybe up on one of those fine corners east of the Park."

"I almost dread it," his mother rejoined. "I never _did_ see how they
kept track of all the help in that hotel, and if it's twice as
monstrous now, however _do_ they do it--and have the beds all made
every day and the meals always on time?"

"And you can _get_ meals there," said Percival.

"I've been needing a broiled lobster all summer--and now the oysters
will be due--fine fat Buzzard's Bays--and oyster crabs."

"He ain't been able to touch a morsel out here," observed Uncle Peter,
with a palpably false air of concern. "I got all worried up about him,
barely peckin' at a crumb or two."

"I never could learn to eat those oysters out of their shells," Mrs.
Bines confessed. "They taste so much better out of the can. Once we had
them raw and on two of mine were those horrid little green crabs,