arden--for it was I
who paid for the beer--he presently invited us all to take an ice-cream
with him at Pettingil's saloon. Pettingil was the Delmonico of
Rivermouth. He furnished ices and confectionery for aristocratic balls
and parties, and didn't disdain to officiate as leader of the orchestra
at the same; for Pettingil played on the violin, as Pepper Whitcomb
described it, "like Old Scratch."

Pettingil's confectionery store was on the corner of Willow and High
Streets. The saloon, separated from the shop by a flight of three steps
leading to a door hung with faded red drapery, had about it an air of
mystery and seclusion quite delightful. Four windows, also draped, faced
the side-street, affording an unobstructed view of Marm Hatch's back
yard, where a number of inexplicable garments on a clothes-line were
always to be seen careering in the wind.

There was a lull just then in the ice-cream business, it being
dinner-time, and we found the saloon unoccupied. When we had seated
ourselves around the largest marble-topped table, Charley Marden in a
manly voice ordered twelve sixpenny icecreams, "strawberry and verneller
mixed."

It was a magnificent sight, those twelve chilly glasses entering the
room on a waiter, the red and white custard rising from each glass like
a church-steeple, and the spoon-handle shooting up from the apex like
a spire. I doubt if a person of the nicest palate could have
distinguished, with his eyes shut, which was the vanilla and which the
strawberry; but if I could at this moment obtain a cream tasting as that
did, I would give five dollars for a very small quantity.

We fell to with a will, and so evenly balanced were our capabilities
that we finished our creams together, the spoons clinking in the glasses
like one spoon.

"Let's have some more!" cried Charley Marden, with the air of Aladdin
ordering up a fresh hogshead of pearls and rubies. "Tom Bailey, tell
Pettingil to send in another round."

Could I credit my ears? I looked at him to see if he were in earnest.
He meant it. In a moment more I was leaning over the counter giving
directions for a second supply. Thinking it would make no difference to
such a gorgeous young sybarite as Marden, I took the liberty of ordering
ninepenny creams this time.

On returning to the saloon, what was my horror at finding it empty!

There were the twelve cloudy glasses, standing in a circle on the sticky
marble slab, and not a boy to be seen. A