aintance with the subject. Sandy was still beyond
seas, but Billy, Junior, was of the household when, just as they took
their place at table for luncheon, the husband and father spoke:

"Maidie wife, they have some capital cider at the Canteen and I ordered
some sent over."

Miss Sanford looked up inquiringly over her poised spoonful of soup.

"The--Canteen?" she asked.

"Yes. The Post Exchange, it is called officially. It's the post shop,
restaurant, club, amusement hall, etc.," answered the head of the house,
while Marion, his wife, glanced just a trifle nervously at her niece.

"But why--Canteen? It isn't, is it, a--bar?" And Miss Sanford's tone
betrayed the depth of her disapprobation of the name.

"Yes, and no," said Uncle Will pleasantly, his dark eyes twinkling under
their heavy brows and lashes. He rather liked to have 'Cilla mount her
successive hobbies, and thought it better, as a rule, to let her air her
theories first in the sanctity of the family circle. "After
experimenting a hundred years or so we found it wiser to prescribe the
drinks as well as the meats of our men, and to provide a place for them
at home where they can have rational amusement and refreshment, rather
than send them out into the world where they get the worst of
everything."

"But, uncle, do you mean you let--you encourage--these young soldiers
to--drink?" And the slender gold chain of Miss Sanford's intellectual
_pince nez_ began to quiver, as did the lady's sensitive nostrils.

"Encourage? No! Let? Yes, so long as it is nothing but sound beer or
light wine--things we buy for them from the most reliable dealers and
provide them practically at cost. You see they have their own clubroom,
and billiards, checkers, chess, dominoes, coffee, cake and sandwiches.
It keeps them here. It helps and contents them. They can't drink more
than is good for them."

"Is it good for them that they should drink--at all?" demanded
Priscilla.

"Possibly not. The ascetic in everything would be, physically perhaps,
the ideal soldier. But precious few soldiers are ascetics, though many
are total abstainers."

"Then why not all, since it is best for so many?"

"Because, 'Cilla, a large number refuse to be abstainers, and we can't
make them. They won't enlist or serve if such conditions are imposed. If
forbidden to use mild and carefully selected stimulant here they will go
elsewhere and get the vilest the frontier can furnish, to the ruin of
their