ater; and
about six o'clock the whole party began to be aware that, if refreshments
were not taken, their end was surely close at hand. They therefore called
a brief halt somewhere to get what is technically known as a "sandwich,"
and the results were thoroughly satisfactory to everyone but Aunt Mary.
She took one bite of her sandwich, and then opened it with an abruptness
which merged into disgust when it proved to be full of fish eggs.

"Why didn't you tell me what it was made of?" she asked in annoyance. "I
feel just as if I'd swallowed a marsh--a green one!"

"That's a shame!" said Clover indignantly. "I'll get you something that
will take that taste out of your mouth double quick. Here!" he called to a
waiter, and then he gave the man certain careful directions.

The latter nodded wisely, and a few minutes later brought in a tiny glass
containing a pousse-cafe in three different colors.

"It's a cocktail. Drink it quick," Clover directed.

Aunt Mary demurred.

"I never drank a cocktail," she began.

"No time like the present to begin," said Clover, "you'll have to learn
some day."

"Cocktails," said Mitchell, "are the advance guard of a newer and brighter
civilization. They--"

"If she's going to take it at all she must take it now," said Clover
authoritatively. "The green and the yellow are beginning to run together.
Quick now!"

His confiding guest drank quick and became the three different colors
quicker yet.

"What's the matter?" Jack asked anxiously.

Aunt Mary was speechless.

"He mixed it wrong," said Clover in a sad, discouraged tone. "What she
ought to have got first she got last, that's all. The cocktail is upside
down inside of her, and the effect of it is upside down on the outside of
her."

"Feel any better now, Aunt Mary?" Jack yelled.

"I can't seem to keep the purple swallowed," said the poor old lady. "I
want to go home. I've always been a great believer in going home when you
feel like I do now. In general--as a rule."

"I would strongly recommend your obeying her wishes," said Mitchell, with
great earnestness. "There's a time for all things, and, in my opinion,
she's had about all the queer tastes that she can absorb for to-day.
Things being as they are and mainly as they shouldn't be, I cast my vote
in with what looks as if it would soon become the losing side, and vote to
bubble back for all we're worth."

There was a general acquiescence in his view of the case, which led