Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/169

 seriously. Two months before the amendment went into effect he put a fortune into booze. Immediately thereafter he was confronted with the difficulty of discovering a place where he might store it safely. He solved the problem by hiring workmen to dig twelve hours into the earth on selected and charted spots on his estate. He figured, if it took a man twelve hours to dig a hole, that, after it was filled up, it would take a thief just as long and, as there are not twelve hours of darkness in any day, it was not likely that he could dig without being observed. He instituted further schemes for protection. He caused some of the caves to be filled with poison-gas and he stationed two men in the tower which caps his house to cover the prospect with machine-guns. Of course, any one can buy all the stuff he wants now, but if you want vintages and assured purity you have to drink at Eddie's. He won't even sell a bottle, although he possesses enough to keep three generations of his family stewed the year round.

I witnessed a most curious form of drinking the other night, Gareth Johns remarked. A mother nursed her child during Aguglia's performance of The Daughter of Jorio at the Thalia. I watched the baby, sucking, prattling, cooing, patting her mother's cheek during the tragic scenes. The mother's eyes dilated with horror. Would the child, I wondered, drink in some of her mother's emotion with the milk?