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 providing cannibals with unshrinkable wool underclothes.

“Who sent the damn stuff?” asked the Major coldly.

“Aunt Araminta.” Horatius nervously removed the wire that held in the cork. One of the staff officers carefully picked up the bottle and proceeded to read the label, while the General’s expression was that of a man who gazes at short range into the mouth of a gun.

“It’s wonderful stuff,” continued Horatius. “Roll, bowl, or pitch, you bag a coconut every time you drink it. My aunt, sir, speaks most highly of it.” He turned to the General, who received the news without enthusiasm.

“Three million bugs to the cubic inch,” read the staff officer musingly. “And if there are twenty cubic inches in the bottle, we get sixty million bugs. Allowing for casualties, and in order to be on the safe side in case the makers swindled, call it fifty million.”

“I think,” remarked the General, breaking an oppressive silence, “I will have a whiskey and soda.”