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By Root 924 0

poured two light drinks for himself and Mildred, containing perhaps two drops of liquor apiece. Then he put in ice and fizz water, set the drinks on the tray and offered them around. But by a fascinating switcheroo, which Mildred never quite understood, he always contrived to give the children the light drinks, himself and Mildred the others. So adroit was this sleight-of-hand, that the children, in spite of their sharpest watching and concentrating, never got the drinks that were supposedly prepared for them. In the day when all the drinks were exactly the same color, there was always a delightful doubt about it: Bert said the children had got their drinks, and as there was at least a whiff of juniper in all the glasses, they usually decided to agree. Tonight, although the switcheroo went off as smoothly as ever, the color of the Scotch betrayed him. But on his plea of fatigue, and the need of a stimulant, they agreed to accept the light drinks, so he set one of the stiff ones for Mildred, and too-k the other himself.

It was a ritual, but after the preliminaries were out of the way, it was enjoyed by each child differently. To Veda, it was an opportunity to stick out her little finger, to quaff elegantly, to play Constance Bennett. She regarded it as an occasion for high-toned conversation, and plied her father with lofty questions about "conditions." He replied seriously, and at some length, for he regarded such inquiries as signs of high mentality on Veda's part. He said that while things had been mighty bad for some time, he now saw definite signs of improvement, and believed "we're due to turn the corner pretty soon."

But to Ray, it was a chance to "get drunk," as she called it, and this she did with the utmost enthusiasm. As soon as she got half of her fizz water down, she jumped up and began spinning around in the middle of the floor, laughing at the top of her lungs. Mildred caught her glass when this started, and held it for her, and she spun around until she was dizzy and fell down, in a paroxysm of delight. Something always caught in Mildred's throat when this wild dance began. She felt, in some vague way, that she ought to stop it, but the child was so delightful that she never could make herself do it. So now she watched, with the tears starting out of her eyes, for the moment forgetting the Scotch. But Veda, no longer the center of the stage, said: "Personally, I think it's a disgusting exhibition."

Ray now went into the next phase of the ritual. This was a sing-song recitation her father had taught her, and went as follows:

I went to the animals' fair,

The birds and the beasts were there,

The old baboon

By the light of the moon

Was combing his auburn hair;

The monkey he got drunk,

And fell on the elephant's trunk,

The elephant sneezed

And fell on his knees—

And what became of the monkety-monk?

However, as Ray recited it, there were certain changes. "Beasts," was a little beyond her, so the line became "the birds and the bees." "Auburn" was a little difficult too, so the old baboon acquired a coat of "old brown hair." The "monkety-monk" was such a tempting mouthful that he became the "monkety-monkety-monkety-monkety-monk," a truly fabulous beast. While she was reciting, her father contrived to slip off his belt and stuff the buckle down the back of his neck, so that suddenly, when he pulled the free end over his head and began trumpeting on all fours, he was a sufficiently plausible elephant for any animals' fair. Ray began circling around, coming nearer and nearer with her recitation. When she was almost on him, and had tweaked his trunk two or three times, he gave a series of mighty sneezes, so that they completely prostrated him. When he - opened his eyes Ray was nowhere to be seen. He now went into a perfect dither of anxiety over what had happened to her, put his head in the fireplace and called loudly up the chimney: "Monkety, monkety, monk."

"Have you looked in the closet?"

"Mildred, I bet that's just where she is."

He opened the closet, put his head in, and called: "Hey."