She took about 800 views of Uncle Peter's country home before she discovered that the camera wasn't loaded properly, which was tough on Peaches but good for the bungalow.
Like everything else in this world picture pinching from still life depends entirely on the point of view.
If your point of view is all right it's an easy matter to make a four-dollar dog-house look like the villa of a Wall Street broker at Newport.
Ten minutes after friend wife had been given the camera she had me set up as a statue all over Uncle Peter's lawn, and she was snapping at me like a Spitz doggie at a peddler.
I sat for two hundred and nineteen pictures that forenoon and I posed for every hero in history, from William the Conqueror down to Doctor Cook, with both feet in a slushy little snowbank representing nearly-the-North-pole.
But when she tried to coax me to climb up on a limb of a tree and stay there till she got a picture of me looking like an owl I swore softly in three languages, fell over the back fence, and ran for my life.
When I rubbershoed it back that afternoon friend wife was busy developing her crimes.
The proper and up-to-date caper in connection with taking snap-shots these days is to buy a developing outfit and upset the household from pit to dome while you are squeezing out pictures of every dearly beloved friend that crosses your pathway.
Friend wife selected a spare room on the top floor of Uncle Peter's home where she could await developments.
A half hour later ghostly noises began to come from that room and mysterious whisperings fell out of the window and bumped over the lawn.
When I reached the front door I found that the gardener had left, the waitress was leaving, and the cook was telephoning for a policeman.
"Where is Mrs. Henry?" I asked Mary, the cook.
"Up to the present time she has developed your Uncle's temper and she has developed your Aunt's appetite, and a couple of bill collectors developed a pain in the neck when she took their pictures, and, if things go on in this way, I think this will soon develop into a foolish house!" said Mary, the cook.
A half hour later, while I was hiding behind the pianola in the living room, not daring to breathe above a whisper for fear I would get my picture taken again, friend wife rushed in exclaiming, "Oh, joy! Oh, joy! John, I have developed two pictures!"