three plates of
waffles. It wasn't natural in her, that quiet, but I remembered the
doughnuts and laid it to the sequence. Still I tried to get her to talk,
as talking, if about herself, generally cheers her quite a lot.

"Anything ail you, Ma?" I says.

"Nothing much," says Ma, lighting into the cream-cake. "Nothing to speak
of."

"Tell me about it then!" I says. But Ma wouldn't. She heaved a big sigh
and handed me a substitute for what was really on her mind. It was
something just as good, I credit her for that.

"You know the stuff you ordered from Schultz?" she says.

"You mean the wet goods I ordered to keep Jim from parching to death
this summer?" I says, because although Jim is far from a real drinking
man, he having his profession of dancing always in mind even after
eleven P. M. and Gawd knows never fails to realize that sound
acrobatics is the basis of all good dancing which a drunkard never yet
was, or at least not for over two seasons; still, in spite of all this,
Jim is a mere male and a drink or two, especially if difficult to get,
is not by any means objectionable to him. And beside he had been two
years in France and I didn't want him to feel it had anything on America
when he come home, even if I had to go so far as to myself personally
replace what Congress had taken away. Do you get me? You do! And I had
done it as far as my bank account, cellarette and the liquor-dealer
permitted. Which looked like it was going to postpone the drought quite
sometime for us. And while here and there stuff like champagne and
brandy and vermouth had to be bought, like remnants on a bargain
counter--just kind of odds and ends of each--I had one satisfaction out
of the buy, and that was getting a case of Old Home Rye--absolutely the
last case in the city--probably the last in the whole entire U. S. A.,
and it was Jim's one best bet. A high-ball of this--just one--with his
dinner was about his exact idea of drinking, and I had calculated that
the three gallons, taking it at his rate would last him pretty near a
year, and by that time some new vice would surely of been invented to
take its place.

Well, anyways, I had ordered it and paid for it, and there wasn't any
more of it anywheres, and it and the contract with Goldringer was two of
the best surprises I had for Jim.

"Well," says Ma. "I can't say I approve of the demon Rum coming into
our--your house, but once money is paid out, I like to see the
goods--_al