filled full of trash by meddling neighbors, that we are going out of our comfortable home to a restaurant, and you ought to see that things like this don't happen!"
To this Alice might have responded that, having been out of the house, she could not help it.
He called Sara and Robert before him.
"Do you hear what I say? Not a single thing between meals are you to eat!"
A swift look of intelligence passed between the two children. It was as sharp as summer lightning, few mothers living would have let it pass unchallenged; but Alice was tired of the whole affair. She had been put in a ridiculous situation, so she formed an alliance with her children against her husband. She formed it by saying nothing and letting that look of swift intelligence pass by unheeded. It was all over in the twinkling of an eye. The children were silent just long enough for Tom Marcey to reiterate, "Do you understand me?"
To which Robert replied, "Yes, sir!"
And Sara, in the most dulcet of tones, "Yes, Father!"
Here Laurie came in.
"I wish you'd step here," she said firmly. "Jamie doesn't look right to me. Jamie's sick."
Tom glanced at Jamie and telephoned for the doctor.
"What," he asked Alice, "do you suppose is the matter with that child? Do you suppose just because we've turned our backs a minute, that he's been eating trash? Can't we go to a restaurant without every idiot in the world filling that child full?"
Here Alice lost patience.
"The trouble is you, Tom Marcey!" she cried. "You with your ridiculous 'No more meals!' You didn't mean it! All you wanted was to get away!"
He checked the torrent of her anger.
"That's what you need," he said pacifically. "That's
