plug you wit' this here gat" 24

Mr. Leary's gait became a desperate gallop, and as
he galloped he shouted: "Wait, please, here I
am.--Here's your passenger" 32

* * * * *

_The Life of the Party_

I

It had been a successful party, most successful. Mrs. Carroway's parties
always were successes, but this one nearing its conclusion stood out
notably from a long and unbroken Carrowayian record. It had been a
children's party; that is to say, everybody came in costume with intent
to represent children of any age between one year and a dozen years. But
twelve years was the limit; positively nobody, either in dress or
deportment, could be more than twelve years old. Mrs. Carroway had made
this point explicit in sending out the invitations, and so it had been,
down to the last hair ribbon and the last shoe buckle. And between
dances they had played at the games of childhood, such as drop the
handkerchief, and King William was King James' son and prisoner's base
and the rest of them.

The novelty of the notion had been a main contributory factor to its
success; that, plus the fact that nine healthy adults out of ten dearly
love to put on freakish garbings and go somewhere. To be exactly
truthful, the basic idea itself could hardly be called new, since long
before some gifted mind thought out the scheme of giving children's
parties for grown-ups, but with her customary brilliancy Mrs. Carroway
had seized upon the issues of the day to serve her social purposes,
weaving timeliness and patriotism into the fabric of her plan by making
it a war party as well. Each individual attending was under pledge to
keep a full and accurate tally of the moneys expended upon his or her
costume and upon arrival at the place of festivities to deposit a like
amount in a repository put in a conspicuous spot to receive these
contributions, the entire sum to be handed over later to the guardians
of a military charity in which Mrs. Carroway was active.

It was somehow felt that this fostered a worthy spirit of wartime
economy, since the donation of a person who wore an expensive costume
would be relatively so much larger than the donation of one who went in
for the simpler things. Moreover, books of thrift stamps were attached
to the favours, the same being children's toys of guaranteed American
manufacture.

In the matter of refreshments Mrs. Carroway had been at pains to c